Definition of "privative" [priv•a•tive]

• Causing deprivation, lack, or loss. (adjective)
• Grammar Altering the meaning of a term from positive to negative. (adjective)
• Grammar A privative prefix or suffix, such as a-, non-, un-, or -less. (noun)

American Heritage(R) Dictionary of the English Language, Fifth Edition. Copyright (c) 2011 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. All rights reserved.

• "The names called privative, therefore, connote two things: the absence of certain attributes, and the presence of others, from which the presence also of the former might naturally have been expected."
• "The names called privative, therefore, connote two things; the absence of certain attributes, and the presence of others, from which the presence also of the former might naturally have been expected."
• "To be without some faculty or to possess it is not the same as the corresponding 'privative' or 'positive'."