adj ·Rare ·Advanced level

Definitions

Adjective

1. 1
   Not negative. not-comparable

   "a non-negative self-evaluation"

2. 2
   Of an element of a partially ordered ring, either positive or zero; not negative; greater than or equal to zero. not-comparable

   "Distances are non-negative."

3. 3
   Of a function, functional, etc. which has non-negative values over a particular domain D. not-comparable

   "For all x∈D, f(x)>0"

Antonyms

All antonyms

negative

Example

More examples

"The init function is expected to return a non-negative value if everything is OK."

Etymology

From non- + negative.

Data sourced from Wiktionary, WordNet, CMU, and other open linguistic databases. Updated March 2026.