positivityn.

1659 H. Hickman (title) A justification of the Fathers and Schoolmen: shewing, that they are not selfe-condemned for denying the positivity of sin.

1678 T. Gale Court of Gentiles: Pt. IV 8 We grant..that sin is not a mere nothing, but has some kind of logic positivitie or notional entitie, so far as to render it capable of being the terme of a proposition.

1741 I. Watts Improvem. Mind i. ix. 137 Courage and Positivity are never more necessary than on such an Occasion.

1775 J. Wimpey Rural Improvem. xxiii. 180 It has long been a question among the farmers, whether it is most profitable to plough with horses or oxen. A very voluminous writer, in a late publication, according to his usual grace of positivity, decides clearly in favour of oxen.

1842 Fraser's Mag. 26 737 The most positive man I ever met with... There is positivity in his dark face, large eyebrows, stern features.

1858 R. G. Mayne Expos. Lexicon Med. Sci. (1860) Positivity, term for the state of a body which manifests the phænomena of positive electricity.

1871 J. Morley Carlyle in Crit. Misc. 219 That truly free and adequate positivity which accepts all things as parts of a natural or historic order.

1922 D. H. Lawrence Fantasia of Unconscious xv. 279 Her [sc. woman's] deep positivity is in the downward flow, the moon-pull.

1964 Amer. Jrnl. Physics 32 264/1 The positivity of Y is required by the agreement in Sec. II on the like orientation of x axis and x¹ axis.

1987 Brit. Med. Jrnl. 4 July 29/1 The transition from antibody positivity to AIDS may be heralded by an acute opportunistic infection or tumour.

2002 Times Educ. Suppl. 27 Sept. (Jobs) 10/3 Many changes have already been made and a climate of positivity exists.

1681 T. A. Religio Clerici 36 That Immaterial, Infinite and the like, were negatives indeed in words,..but properly and in themselves they were absolute positivities.