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Negation vs Affirmative - What's the difference?

negation | affirmative |

As nouns the difference between negation and affirmative

is that negation is denial (act of denying) while affirmative is yes; an answer that shows agreement or acceptance.

As an adjective affirmative is

pertaining to truth; asserting that something is ; affirming.

negation

English

Noun

  • (uncountable) The act of negating something.
  • (countable) A denial or contradiction.
  • * (Thomas Hardy)
    • But it pleased her to play on my passion / And whet me to pleadings / That won from her mirthful negations / And scornings undue.
  • (logic, countable) A proposition which is the contradictory of another proposition and which can be obtained from that other proposition by the appropriately placed addition/insertion of the word "not". (Or, in symbolic logic, by prepending that proposition with the symbol for the logical operator "not".)
  • *
  • (logic) The logical operation which obtains such (negated) propositions.
  • * {{quote-web
    • , date = 2011-07-20 , author = Edwin Mares , title = Propositional Functions , site = The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy , url = http://plato.stanford.edu/archives/fall2011/entries/propositional-function , accessdate = 2012-07-15 }}
    Although some of the logicians working in term logic have very complicated treatments of negation, we can see the origin of the modern conception in the extensional tradition as well. In Boole and most of his followers, the negation of a term is understood as the set theoretic complement of the class represented by that term. For this reason, the negation of classical propositional logic is often called ‘Boolean negation’.

    Hypernyms

    * (a proposition which negates another one) contradictory * (logical operation) logical connective

    Related terms

    * negate * negative * negativeness * negativism * negativity

    affirmative

    English

    Adjective

    (en adjective)
  • pertaining to truth; asserting that something is ; affirming
    • an affirmative answer
  • pertaining to any assertion or active confirmation that favors a particular result
  • positive
    • an affirmative vote
  • Confirmative; ratifying.
    • an act affirmative of common law
  • dogmatic
  • * Berkeley
    • Lysicles was a little disconcerted by the affirmative air of Crito.
  • (logic) Expressing the agreement of the two terms of a proposition.
  • (algebra) positive; not negative

    • Derived terms

    * affirmative action

    Noun

    (en noun)
  • Yes; an answer that shows agreement or acceptance.
    • That's an affirmative Houston, the space shuttle has lost the secondary thrusters.
    10-4 good buddy. That's an affirmative - the tractor trailer is in the ditch at the side of the highway.
  • (grammatical terminology) An answer that shows agreement or acceptance.
  • (obsolete) An assertion.
  • * 1646 , Sir Thomas Browne, Pseudodoxia Epidemica , III.17:
    • that every hare is both male and female, beside the vulgar opinion, was the affirmative of Archelaus, of Plutarch, Philostratus, and many more.

    See also

    * affirmative sentence ----