privative
/ˈprɪvətɪv/adjective, noun
privative is an adjective meaning “Causing privation; depriving” (English Wiktionary, September 2026). It is spelled P-R-I-V-A-T-I-V-E, and it appears about once in every 33 million words in written English (wordfreq, 2021 data).
What does privative mean?
adjective
- 1
Causing privation; depriving.
- 2
Consisting in the absence of something; negative.
- 3
Indicating the absence of something.
noun
- 1
something that causes privation or indicates an absence
Source: English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org (Wiktextract).
How do you pronounce privative?
- /ˈprɪvətɪv/
Source: English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org (Wiktextract). Recordings: LL-Q1860_(eng)-Vealhurl-privative.wav, Wikimedia Commons (author and licence on each file's page).
Forms of privative
- more privative comparative
- most privative superlative
- privatives plural
Source: English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org (Wiktextract).
How common is privative?
Privative appears about once in every 33 million words in written English, the 176,009th most frequent word form in the list.
Source: written frequency: wordfreq 3.1 (a 2021 snapshot of Wikipedia, subtitles, news, books, web text and social media).
Privative in Spanish, French, German and Portuguese
In the sense indicating the absence of something:
Source: English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org (Wiktextract). Translations are Wiktionary's, by sense; a linked word has its own PlainSpell page.
Where does privative come from?
From Latin privativus.
Source: English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org (Wiktextract).