Synonyms for positive
- clear
- conclusive
- confident
- decisive
- specific
- absolute
- affirmative
- cold
- concrete
- express
- firm
- perfect
- rank
- real
- actual
- assured
- categorical
- clear-cut
- cocksure
- complete
- consummate
- convinced
- decided
- direct
- downright
- explicit
- factual
- forceful
- forcible
- genuine
- hard
- inarguable
- incontestable
- incontrovertible
- indisputable
- indubitable
- irrefutable
- out-and-out
- outright
- sure
- thorough
- thoroughgoing
- unambiguous
- undeniable
- unequivocal
- unmistakable
- unmitigated
Antonyms for positive
- indefinite
- uncertain
- vague
- flawed
- flexible
- imperfect
- imprecise
- yielding
- disadvantageous
- doubtful
- negative
- unhelpful
- unsure
EXAMPLES FROM THE WEB FOR POSITIVE
I can not give you any positive dates connected with Prehistoric Man.
To all the generations before our own matter was a sheer and positive density.
The positive character of this prediction made it very, welcome.
Let us by all means give them instead a dose of positive philosophy.
It means also the power of soul accumulated in the positive doing of good.
Daisy would never have done this consciously--of that I am positive.
Yer'd be positive o' passin' 'er if she didn't syle afore 'igh-tide.
There is a positive vulgarity in carrying your business affairs about with you as you do.'
The air did not seem lovely to him, for he was positive that he detected the taint.
It is the vertebra which steadies him plumb up to a positive perpendicular.
WORD ORIGIN
early 14c., originally a legal term meaning "formally laid down," from Old French positif (13c.) and directly from Latin positivus "settled by agreement, positive" (opposed to naturalis "natural"), from positus, past participle of ponere "put, place" (see position (n.)).
Sense of "absolute" is from mid-15c. Meaning in philosophy of "dealing only with facts" is from 1590s. Sense broadened to "expressed without qualification" (1590s), then "confident in opinion" (1660s); mathematical use is from 1704; in electricity, 1755. Psychological sense of "concentrating on what is constructive and good" is recorded from 1916.