positivo

Forms

positivo (feminine positiva, masculine plural positivos, feminine plural positivas)^[1]

Etymology

It is borrowed from Latin positīvus (“laid down by convention; positive (in grammar)”), a learned word.^[2][3][4][1] The Latin adjective is formed with the suffix -īvus on positus, the past participle of pōnō (“to put, place”).^[5][6][7] In Latin it described what is fixed by arbitrary appointment rather than by nature, and in grammar an adjective in its plain degree, which simply states a quality without comparing it.^[5][8][7] The verb itself goes back to an older compound meaning “to put down”, with the prefix po- before the verb sinō (“to let, allow”).^[9]

The same Latin word is Portuguese positivo, Catalan positiu, French positif and Italian positivo.^[1][10] French took it about 1278, also as a term of philosophy and grammar.^[11]

Bénaben traces the main modern sense to the grammatical one: an adjective that sets down a quality came to mean a word that affirms something, and then something certain, the opposite of negativo.^[7]

Earliest recorded meaning

The DEMel records positivo about 1300 in the Leyes del estilo, a legal text the DEMel lists under Alfonso X.^[12] Corominas dates the word to 1438 in the BDELC; in the DCECH he gives Alfonso de Palencia's grammatical use (1490) and dates the sense “certain, real” only to the first third of the 17th century, in Ana de Jesús's biography by Manrique, quoted by Autoridades.^[3][2]

Semantic evolution

In the 15th century the word belonged to law and grammar: derecho positivo was the law laid down by God or by human rulers, as against natural law, and an adjective positivo was one in its plain degree.^[2][13] Autoridades gives the sense “certain, effective, true” first, then the grammatical sense and the logical one, “affirmative” as against “negative”, and the phrase de positivo “certainly”.^[14] The theological sense appears in the Americas from 1639, in praise of a Peruvian theologian learned “in what is scholastic and positive”.^[15]

In the 19th century the word gained a practical sense: Salvá (1846) marks as a neologism its use for what has a real advantage, and in 1869 the Academy described a positivo person as one who looks for the real side of things, especially the pleasures of life, rather than living on hopes and flattery.^[16][17] The same edition added the senses of mathematics and physics; by 1917 Alemany also had the photographic print.^[17][18] Today the word also means “optimistic” and is used of the result of a medical or doping test, where it is often a noun, un positivo.^[4][19] The DTME notes that compounds such as VIH-positivo follow English and advises restraint with them.^[20]

Timeline

• c. 1300 – first record in the Leyes del estilo.^[12]
• 1438 – the date Corominas gives for the word in the BDELC.^[3][21]
• 1490 – Alfonso de Palencia uses it as a term of grammar.^[2]
• 1492 – the first text of the HSMS archive with the word.^[22]
• 1639 – first record from the Americas, in Peru, in a theological sense.^[15]
• 18th century – Autoridades defines it as “certain, effective, true” and records the phrase de positivo.^[14]
• 1846 – Salvá records the practical sense as a neologism.^[16]
• 1869 – the Academy adds the sense of a practical, matter-of-fact person and the senses of mathematics and physics.^[17]
• 1899 – the Academy gives the etymology, Latin positivus.^[23]

Meanings

Adjective

1. certain, real, beyond doubt: un avance positivo.^[4][24]
2. Showing that something exists or is present, as against negativo; of a test or analysis, showing the presence of what is sought (often as a noun, un positivo): El análisis salió positivo.^[4][19]
3. affirmative, expressing agreement or acceptance.^[4][1]
4. Useful, practical or beneficial: una experiencia positiva.^[4][24]
5. Of a person, optimistic, inclined to see the good side of things.^[4][24]
6. (mathematics) Of a quantity, greater than cero.^[4][20]
7. (photography) Of an image, showing light, shade and colour as they are in reality; as a noun, such an image.^[4][25]
8. (law) Of a law or of law in general, enacted and in force, as against natural law.^[4][13]
9. (physics) Having an electric charge of the opposite kind to that of the electrón.^[4]

Related words

• poner
• posición
• positivismo
• diapositiva
• negativo
• Latin positīvus

Usage notes

Positivo was also the grammatical name of the plain degree of an adjective, beside comparativo and superlativo.^[14][7] The phrase de positivo “certainly” is rare today.^[4]

References

1. ^ a b c d e Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b c d Corominas, Joan; Pascual, José A. (1980–1991), Diccionario crítico etimológico castellano e hispánico, 6 vols., Madrid: Gredos, p. 4, 607
3. ^ a b c Corominas, Joan (1973), Breve diccionario etimológico de la lengua castellana, 3rd ed., Madrid: Gredos, p. s.v. poner
4. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l Real Academia Española; Asociación de Academias de la Lengua Española (2014–), Diccionario de la lengua española, 23rd ed., online version 23.8, https://dle.rae.es, p. s.v. positivo
5. ^ a b Glare, P. G. W., ed. (2012), Oxford Latin Dictionary, 2nd ed., Oxford: Oxford University Press
6. ^ Gómez de Silva, Guido (1988), Breve diccionario etimológico de la lengua española, México: Fondo de Cultura Económica / El Colegio de México
7. ^ a b c d Bénaben, Michel (2000), Dictionnaire étymologique de l'espagnol, Paris: Ellipses
8. ^ Lewis, Charlton T.; Short, Charles (1879), A Latin Dictionary, Oxford: Clarendon Press
9. ^ de Vaan, Michiel (2008), Etymological Dictionary of Latin and the other Italic Languages, Leiden Indo-European Etymological Dictionary Series 7, Leiden; Boston: Brill, p. s.v. pōnō
10. ^ Cunha, Antônio Geraldo da (2010), Dicionário etimológico da língua portuguesa, 4th ed., Rio de Janeiro: Lexikon, p. 2664
11. ^ Rey, Alain, ed. (1992), Dictionnaire historique de la langue française, Paris: Le Robert
12. ^ a b Diccionario del Español Medieval electrónico (DEMel), data publication 2026 (CC BY-SA), Universität Rostock
13. ^ a b Real Academia Española (1843), Diccionario de la lengua castellana, 9th ed., Madrid: Imprenta de D. Francisco María Fernández, p. 579
14. ^ a b c Real Academia Española (1726–1739), Diccionario de la lengua castellana (Diccionario de Autoridades), 6 vols., Madrid: Francisco del Hierro, p. 5, 334
15. ^ a b Boyd-Bowman, Peter (2003), Léxico hispanoamericano 1493–1993, ed. Ray Harris-Northall and John J. Nitti, New York: Hispanic Seminary of Medieval Studies
16. ^ a b Salvá, Vicente (1846), Nuevo diccionario de la lengua castellana, París: Librería de Don Vicente Salvá, p. 868
17. ^ a b c Real Academia Española (1869), Diccionario de la lengua castellana, 11th ed., Madrid: Imprenta de Don Manuel Rivadeneyra, p. 623
18. ^ Alemany y Bolufer, José (1917), Diccionario de la lengua española, Barcelona: Ramón Sopena, p. 1357
19. ^ a b Moliner, María (2007), Diccionario de uso del español, 3rd ed., Madrid: Gredos, p. s.v. positivo
20. ^ a b Real Academia Nacional de Medicina (2011), Diccionario de términos médicos, Madrid: Editorial Médica Panamericana; online at https://dtme.ranm.es, p. s.v. positivo
21. ^ Segura Munguía, Santiago (2001), Nuevo diccionario etimológico latín-español y de las voces derivadas, Bilbao: Universidad de Deusto, p. 581
22. ^ Hispanic Seminary of Medieval Studies (2026), Old Spanish Textual Archive (OSTA): semi-paleographic transcriptions of Old Spanish texts, ed. Francisco Gago Jover et al., https://www.hispanicseminary.org
23. ^ Real Academia Española (1899), Diccionario de la lengua castellana, 13th ed., Madrid: Imprenta de los Sres. Hernando y Compañía, p. 801
24. ^ a b c Battaner Arias, Paz (dir.) (2017), Diccionario general de la lengua española VOX, Barcelona: Larousse Editorial, p. s.v. positivo
25. ^ Wikcionario (Spanish Wiktionary), es.wiktionary.org