Emily Dickinson Lexicon

PRIV'A-TIVE, n.

1. That of which the essence is the absence of something. Blackness and darkness are privatives. – Bacon.
2. In grammar, a prefix to a word which changes its signification and gives it a contrary sense, as α, in Greek; αδικος, unjust; α and δικη; un and in in English, as unwise, inhuman. The word may also be applied to suffixes, as less in harmless.