Positivity

How to spell positivity

10 letters · 5 syllables

How to pronounce positivity

Say the part in capitals loudest.

What does positivity mean?

1. nounThe quality of being optimistic, hopeful, or constructive in attitude.

Positivity in a sentence

• Her relentless positivity kept the whole team motivated through the deadline.

• The coach valued positivity as much as raw talent in his players.

Where does positivity come from?

Language of origin: Latin

This word is built on 'positive', which English took in the 1300s through Old French 'positif' from the Latin 'positivus', meaning 'formally laid down' or 'settled'. That Latin adjective came from 'positus', the past participle of the verb 'ponere', which literally meant 'to put' or 'to place'. The early sense was legalistic: something 'positive' was a rule definitely laid down rather than merely assumed, and the same 'pon'/'pos' root sits inside everyday relatives such as 'pose', 'deposit', 'compose' and 'position'. The cheerful modern flavour, the idea of optimism and constructive thinking, is comparatively recent, and the abstract noun 'positivity' grew naturally by stacking '-ity' onto 'positive' to name the quality itself. Remembering that the middle is the ordinary word 'positive' is the surest guard against the spelling, since the trap is the unstressed vowels that flatten to a faint 'uh' in speech (posi-TIV-i-ty) yet must still be written as i and i.

How the word is built

• posit- (from Latin positus: placed, set down)
• -iv- (adjective former, as in 'positive')
• -ity (noun-forming suffix marking a quality or state)