| 释义 |
negation|nɪˈgeɪʃən|
[a. F. négation (12th c.), or ad. L. negātiōn-em, n. of action f. negāre to say no, deny. Cf. It. negazione, Sp. negacion.]
1. a. The action of denying or of making a statement involving the use of ‘no’, ‘not’, ‘never’, etc. Also const. of. (Sometimes passing into 2.)
1530Palsgr. Introd. 41 In negation they use one of these thre wordes, pas, point or mye. 1550Bale Apol. 23 b, But I founde therin no answere appoynted to be made..neyther by affyrmacion nor yet negacion. 1634Bp. Hall Contempl., N.T. iv. xvii, Not by way of negation, as if nothing were necessary but this; but by way of comparison. 1654Bramhall Just Vind. vi. (1661) 159 Our Negation is only of humane controverted additions. 1713Berkeley Hylas & Phil. ii. Wks. 1871 I. 315, I superadd to this general idea the negation of all those particular things, qualities, or ideas. 1790R. Merry Laurel of Liberty (ed. 2) 13 O! better were it, ever to be lost In black Negation's sea. 1851Gladstone Glean. (1879) IV. 7 This is the negation of God erected into a system of Government. 1875H. James R. Hudson (1879) III. 76 She made a gesture of negation.
b. An instance of this; a negative statement, doctrine, etc.; a refusal or contradiction; a denial of something.
1576Fleming Panopl. Epist. 111 Some things there be which of custome I shake off, with a manifest negation. 1606Shakes. Tr. & Cr. v. ii. 127 Why my negation hath no taste of madnesse. 1675R. Barclay Apol. Quakers v. §25. 183 Is a bare Negation sufficient to overturn the strength of a positive Assertion? 1726–31Tindal Rapin's Hist. Eng. (1743) VII. xvii. 127 To judge whether more credit were to be given to her bare negation than to their affirmation. 1797Burke Let. Aff. Irel. Wks. IX. 465 Our difference is only a negation of certain tenets of theirs. 1817Coleridge Biog. Lit. (Bohn) 164 Negations involve impediments not less formidable than sophistication. 1866Rogers Agric. & Prices I. iv. 70 Villenage..implied a negation of all rights in land and chattels.
c. As a term of Logic, opp. to affirmation 3. As a logical operation in Computing = inversion 2 k. Also negation-sign, the sign or symbol used to indicate negation.
1570Billingsley Euclid i. vii. 17 In this proposition the conclusion is a negation. 1588Fraunce Lawiers Log. ii. i. 88 A negation dooth but deprive and take away. 1620T. Granger Div. Logike 105 The one is a thing being, the other a negation of the being thereof. 1725Watts Logic i. ii. §6 A negation is the absence of that which does not naturally belong to the thing we are speaking of. 1788Reid Aristotle's Logic i. §4. 14 Negation is the enunciation of one thing from another. 1864Bowen Logic v. 136 Negation is only the affirmation of difference or exclusion. 1948McKinsey & Tarski in Jrnl. Symbolic Logic XIII. 1 As regards constants, they are three in number: the negation sign, the conjunction sign, and the possibility sign. 1949E. C. Berkeley Giant Brains iii. 34 The simplest computing operation is negation. 1955A. N. Prior Formal Logic iii. ii. 253 We regard..his negation-sign as meaning impossibility. 1959E. M. McCormick Digital Computer Primer v. 64 The not logical operation (negation) results in an output which is opposite to its single input. 1962T. C. Bartee et al. Theory & Design Digital Machines iii. 23 Some authors refer to x′ as not x or as the negation of x corresponding to our complement of x. 1965Hughes & Londey Elem. Formal Logic x. 67 We used the Law of Double Negation to insert a pair of negation signs. 1969F. M. Hall Introd. Abstr. Algebra II. xi. 313 The negation, or complement, of A, written A′, is the statement ‘it is false that A’, or briefly ‘not A’.
2. The absence or opposite of something which is actual, positive, or affirmative.
1642H. More Song of Soul ii. iii. iii. xviii, Rash man that dost inferre negation From thy dead eare, or non⁓experience. 1651C. Cartwright Cert. Relig. i. 223 Not to will a mans salvation, is properly no act, but rather a negation of an act. 1673Kersey Algebra i. i. (1725) 6 This character—is a sign of Negation. a1754Fielding Remedy of Affliction Wks. 1775 IX. 258 Death is nothing more than the negation of life. 1837Goring & Pritchard Microgr. 79 Some compound of black (which implies a negation of colour). 1871Tyndall Fragm. Sci. (1879) I. xxi. 492 Death in this case would be simply the sudden negation of life.
3. A negative or unreal thing, a nonentity; a thing whose essence consists in the absence of something positive.
1707Curios. in Husb. & Gard. Pref. 5 Meer Negations, and simple Privations, as Death, Ignorance, Blindness, and the like. 1821Lamb Elia Ser. i. Old Benchers, Next to him was old Barton—a jolly negation. 1893Huxley Evolution & Eth. ii. 65 Though reduced to a hypostatized negation, Brahma was not to be trusted.
Hence neˈgational a., negative, using or involving negation.
1865D. W. Thompson Odds & Ends iii. 6 We can but imperfectly describe the conditions of its actuality by negational terms. 1882C. E. Turner in Macm. Mag. Apr. 484/1 Bazaroff..should profess exclusively negational and abolitionary doctrines. |