positive
Usage
What are other ways to say positive?
The adjective positive implies emphatic certainty, which may even become overconfidence or dogmatism. Certain suggests that there are definite reasons that have freed one from doubt. Confident emphasizes the strength of the belief or the certainty of expectation felt. Sure, the simplest and most general term, expresses mere absence of doubt.
Example Sentences
Examples are provided to illustrate real-world usage of words in context. Any opinions expressed do not reflect the views of Dictionary.com.
See Examples For:
“We have literally a tug of war between the negative supply shock from the Middle East and the positive demand shock from AI,” Kristalina Georgieva, managing director of the International Monetary Fund, said this week.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Aug. 28, 2026
She described her husband as a "true gentleman", who was kind and patient with a positive outlook on life.
From BBC ● Aug. 28, 2026
Wall Street had provided a positive lead, with all three main indexes rising, though the gains were based entirely on the tech sector, which was the only one of 11 to advance.
From Barron's ● Aug. 28, 2026
If the index can reach a little higher, a close above 7,740 would be especially positive.
From MarketWatch ● Aug. 27, 2026
“Briggs is positive John Harvey will win,” said Walt.
From "Caterpillar Summer" by Gillian McDunn
Since the public rolls don’t include voters’ unique identifiers, people at the lab also knew linking them to HSI’s data would produce mismatches — what the staffer called an “ungodly” number of false positives.
From Salon ● Aug. 15, 2026
"They're trying to make the case that the positives will far outweigh some of those negatives that the public backlash is pointing out," he said.
From BBC ● Aug. 14, 2026
This is one of several positives they see in Telstra’s latest update.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Aug. 13, 2026
At 98% specificity, meaning the test produced few false positives, it identified about 63% of cancers across all stages.
From Science Daily ● Aug. 11, 2026
Instead, he poured his energy into the positives.
From "While the World Watched: A Birmingham Bombing Survivor Comes of Age during the Civil Rights Movement" by Carolyn Maull McKinstry
Vocabulary lists containing positive
The SAT: Words to Capture Tone, List 3
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The SAT: Multiple-Meaning Words, List 3
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The New SAT: Words to Capture Tone
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