negativing

Verb

negative (third-person singular simple present negatives, present participle negativing, simple past and past participle negatived)

1. (transitive) To refuse; to veto.
   • Poppy earnestly begged to be allowed to go with Jasmine on the roof, but this the good lady negatived with horror.1887, L. T. Meade, chapter XVIII, in The Palace Beautiful: A Story for Girls
2. (transitive) To contradict.
   • "A comely maid, that," said the other.
     "True, comely enough. But unless I make a great mistake—" And he negatived the remainder of the definition forthwith.1892, Thomas Hardy, chapter XXXIII, in Tess of the d'Urbervilles
3. (transitive) To disprove.
   • At one time an idea got abroad that the whole tale of her fortune had been a myth; […] but the boastings of various servants who declared they had seen her with “rolls on rolls” of banknotes […] negatived the truth of this statement.1882, J. H. Riddell, “Old Mrs Jones”, in The Collected Ghost Stories of Mrs. J. H. Riddell, Dover, published 1977, page 192
4. (transitive) To make ineffective; to neutralize; to negate.
   • "The War Office," said Miss Nightingale, "is a very slow office, an enormously expensive office, and one in which the Minister's intentions can be entirely negatived by all his sub-departments, and those of each of the sub-departments by every other."1918 May 9, Lytton Strachey, “[Florence Nightingale.] Chapter III”, in Eminent Victorians: Cardinal Manning, Florence Nightingale, Dr. Arnold, General Gordon (Library of English Literature; LEL...

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