privative, a. (n.)
(ˈprɪvətɪv)
[ad. L. prīvātīv-us denoting privation, in Gram. privative, negative, f. ppl. stem of prīvāre (see prive v. and -ive). So F. privatif, -ive (16th c. in Hatz.-Darm.).]
1. Having the quality of depriving; tending to take away; † having power to prevent (obs. rare).
| a 1600 Hooker Eccl. Pol. v. App. i. §26 We may add that negative or privative will also, whereby he withholdeth his graces from some, and so is said to cast them asleep whom he maketh not vigilant. a 1639 Wotton Elect. Dk. Venice in Reliq. (1651) 186 No one of them had voices enough to exclude the other three from making a Duke: for to this Privative Power are required seventeen Bals at least. 1646 S. Bolton Arraignm. Err. 283 The power of a Synod as I told you, is not privative, but cumulative. 1650 R. Hollingworth Exerc. Usurped Powers 45 If the thing sworn should become privative of, or opposite to, the publick good. 1875 Poste Gaius i. Introd. (ed. 2) 3 Title..is any fact Collative or Privative of a Right and Impositive or Exonerative of an Obligation. |
2. Consisting in or characterized by the taking away or removal of something, or by the loss or want of some quality or attribute normally or presumably present; also, in looser sense, by the simple absence of some quality, negative.
(In quot. 1398, privative is the Latin adv., after the preceding L. positive in the L. and Eng. texts, though both words were mistaken for English in the printed ed. of 1495.)
| [1398 Trevisa Barth. De P.R. xix. xxxviii. (Bodl. MS.), Fumosite..þat declareþ not þe complection of stone positiue [1495 -yf] & bi presens of odoure, but priuatiue [-yf] & bi absens of odoure (non positiue, sed per priuationem et absentiam).] |
| 1598 Bacon Sacr. Medit. xi. Ess. (Arb.) 127 They..bring in against God a principle negatiue and priuatiue, that is a cause of not being and subsisting. 1644 Vicars God in Mount 185 Remarkable mercies both by Sea and Land, both privative and positive. 1651 Jer. Taylor Serm. for Year i. xii. 151 The very privative blessings, the blessings of immunity, safeguard, and integrity, which we all enjoy. 1651 Baxter Inf. Bapt. 48 Their unbelief which was but negative, was not privative. a 1659 Z. Bogan in Spurgeon Treas. Dav. Ps. xxiii. 1 Only privative defects discommend a thing, and not those that are negative. 1805 Monthly Mag. XX. 137 As we deprive a body of part or all of its natural share of fluid to produce what is called negative electricity, whether the words privative electricity would not be more proper? 1838 [see privation 2]. 1866 T. N. Harper Peace thro' Truth 309 note, We mean by it [aversion]..something which is not positive, but privative,—not an act, but a state. |
3. Of terms: Denoting or predicating privation, or (loosely) absence of a quality or attribute.
| 1646 Sir T. Browne Pseud. Ep. 152 Although they had neither eyes nor sight, yet could they not be termed blinde; for blindenesse being a privative terme unto sight, this appellation is not admittible in propriety of speech. 1656 tr. Hobbes' Elem. Philos. (1839) 18 The first distinction of names is, that some are positive, or affirmative, others negative, which are also called privative and indefinite. 1690 Locke Hum. Und. iii. i. §4 All which negative or privative Words cannot be said..to..signify no Ideas..but..relate to positive Ideas, and signify their Absence. 1829 Jas. Mill Hum. Mind (1869) II. xiv. 105 Privative terms are marks for objects, as not present or not existent. [Note by J. S. Mill: ‘It is usual to reserve the term Privative for names which signify not simple absence, but the absence of something usually present, or of which the presence might have been expected’.] 1871 Morley Crit. Misc. Ser. i. Carlyle (1878) 162 The addition of a crowd of privative or negative epithets at discretion. |
4. Gram. Expressing privation or negation; esp. applied to a particle or affix.
| 1590 Hutchinson in Greenwood Collect. Sclaund. Art. D iv b, Know you what α is here, it is α priuatiue. 1706 Phillips s.v., A Privative Particle in Grammar. 1837 G. Phillips Syriac Gram. 116 The particle..placed before adjectives assigns a privative signification to them. 1846 Proc. Philol. Soc. II. 184 Bopp's theory of the Greek past tenses..being formed by the addition of the particle called α privative. |
B. n. A privative attribute, quality, proposition, word, or particle.
| 1588 Fraunce Lawiers Log. i. xi. 49 b, Priuatiues they call those whereof one denieth onely in that subiect where⁓vnto the affirmatiue agreeth by nature. 1627 Donne Serm. v. (1640) 46 Man hath more privatives, then positives in him. a 1683 Oldham Poet. Wks. (1686) 109 In them sin is but a meer privative of good, The frailty, and defect of flesh and blood. 1697 tr. Burgersdicius his Logic ii. xviii. 83 Of Privatives, The one must of Necessity be in the Capacious Subject, the other not. As, He is blind; and therefore does not see. 1864 Bowen Logic vi. 152 One is merely the Contradictory or the privative of the other. |