Word.ws English Dictionary

How to use negative in a sentence

40 example sentences · adjective, noun, verb

Negative means not positive or neutral; bad; undesirable; unfavourable. Example: “The high exchange rate will have a negative effect on our profits.”

Examples of negative by meaning

adjectiveNot positive or neutral; bad; undesirable; unfavourable.

  • The high exchange rate will have a negative effect on our profits.
  • Customers didn’t like it: feedback was mostly negative.

adjectiveLess than zero degrees Celsius or Fahrenheit.

  • I was out in negative weather today.

adjectiveOf a test result: not positive, not detected.

  • negative detection of.

adjectiveDenying a proposition; negating a concept.

  • Marx had said that the negative freedom of the liberal bourgeois tradition would have no place in socialist society, as it only expressed the antagonistic character of society.1978 [1976], Leszek Kołakowski, translated by P[aul] S[teven] Falla, Main Currents of Marxism, volume I: The Founders, Oxford: Clarendon...

adjectivePessimistic; not tending to see the bright side of things.

  • I don’t like to hang around him very much because he can be so negative about his petty problems.

adjectiveMetalloidal, nonmetallic; contrasted with positive or basic.

  • The nitro group is negative.

adjectiveHIV negative.

  • We certainly told him at that time that I was negative.quoted in 2013, William I. Johnston, HIV-Negative: How the Uninfected Are Affected by AIDS (page 145)

adjectiveNo, not any, zero.

  • I wish I could follow you on that, but it makes negative sense.2002 September 7, Jef, “MST3K DVD Collection One”, in rec.arts.tv.mst3k.misc (Usenet)

More sentences with negative

  • The word "happy" has a positive connotation, while "sad" has a negative connotation.From the entry connotation
  • King John cast his predecessor in a negative light to deflect criticism of his own questionable decisions.From the entry cast
  • The collodion on a negative, or a coat of varnish, may creep in drying.From the entry creep
  • Magoon's governorship in Cuba was viewed in a negative light by many Cuban historians for years thereafter.From the entry light
  • She replied in the negative, with a shake of her head.From the entry shake
  • Statisticians often define a recession as negative real GDP growth during two consecutive quarters.From the entry recession
  • At a conservative estimate, growth may even be negative next year.From the entry conservative
  • Within the set of real numbers, the square root of a negative number is undefined.From the entry undefined
  • I found daily meditation to be a useful inhibitor of negative thoughts.From the entry inhibitor
  • If a gambler repeatedly plays a game with negative expectation, his payoff over time is a supermartingale.From the entry supermartingale
  • I was lucky to test HIV negative after not having used condoms consistently with multiple partners.From the entry HIV negative
  • The square root of 4 is 2. No negative real square roots exist. Negative numbers have no real square roots.From the entry square root
  • The company folded after six quarters of negative growth.From the entry fold
  • Waste is a negative externality arising from consumption.From the entry externality
  • A positive photograph can be developed from a photographic negative.From the entry positive
  • The DNA test returned a false negative because the killer was a chimera, having absorbed her twin in utero.From the entry chimera
  • One must take care in handling negative zero in comparisons.From the entry negative zero
  • She’s working hard to do away with negative thinking.From the entry do away with
  • Gradually the negative feelings encroached into her work.From the entry encroach
  • If you consider all the negative and all the positive factors, it should balance out to something acceptable.From the entry balance out
  • Free cash flow can be very negative for profitable, fast-growing businesses and very positive for unprofitable, declining ones.From the entry free cash flow
  • To avoid negative publicity, we arrived at an out-of-court settlement.From the entry out-of-court
  • The risk premium of equities can turn negative according to proxy measures, as has often occurred over the decades.From the entry risk premium
  • My blood type is A negative.From the entry a
  • Don't give me your negative attitude.From the entry attitude
  • A false positive from a cancer screening test will unnecessarily frighten a healthy person; a false negative will deprive them of timely treatment.From the entry false positive
  • While a false positive from a cancer screening test will unnecessarily frighten a healthy person, a false negative will deprive them of timely treatment.From the entry false negative
  • The opinions on importation of American wheat and steel did not seem as negative as those against importation of American cheese and beer.From the entry American cheese
  • Germany’s business index shows a negative outlook with a dire picture, indicating that the broader European crisis will affect Europe’s second-largest economy.From the entry business index
  • Think about using the experience of a negative limerent episode as an opportunity to improve your life.2025 September 20, Tom Bellamy, quoted in: Marielle Segarra, Clare Marie Schneider, and Malaka Gharib, A neuroscientist explains how to…. From the entry limerent
  • Train operating companies get plenty of column inches in the tabloids, usually for negative reasons.2024 February 21, Nick Brodrick, “Inclusion and Development for All”, in Rail, number 1003, Peterborough, Cambridgeshire: Bauer Media…. From the entry tabloid

Meaning of negative

  1. adjective Not positive or neutral; bad; undesirable; unfavourable.
  2. adjective Of a number: less than zero.
  3. adjective Less than zero degrees Celsius or Fahrenheit.

Full definition of negative

Questions about negative in a sentence

How do you use negative in a sentence?
Negative is used as an adjective, noun and verb. For example: “The high exchange rate will have a negative effect on our profits.”
What is a short sentence with negative?
“negative detection of.”
What does negative mean?
Negative means not positive or neutral; bad; undesirable; unfavourable.

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: negative (page history and authors) and the entries each sentence comes from. Text available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 license. Word.ws chose the sentences, left out offensive ones and quotations older than 1900, and marked the word in each. Wiktionary data of 2026-09-02.

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Cite this page: “How to use negative in a sentence.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/sentences/negative. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.