pon-, posit-, pos-, -poning, -poned, -ponency, -ponent, -ponement, -pound

1. Placed or located directly across from something else or from each other: opposite sides of a building.
2. Facing the other way; moving or tending away from each other: opposite directions.
3. Being the other of two complementary or mutually exclusive things.

1. Characterized by, or displaying certainty, acceptance, or affirmation, and not in doubt; such as, a positive answer; a positive criticism.
2. Conclusive and beyond doubt or question: "She made a positive identification of the accused robber."
3. Confident, optimistic, and focusing on good things rather than bad; such as, he had a positive attitude about what he was doing on his job.
4. Producing good results because of having an innately beneficial character: such as, having a very positive experience.
5. Encouraging behavior; especially, in the young, that is considered morally good: "He was a great example of being a positive role model."
6. Indicating agreement or affirmation; such as, providing positive feedback.
7. Used to emphasize the degree to which something is true, striking, or impressive.
8. In mathematics, capable of being measured, detected, or perceived: "There was a positive correlation between our investment in telecommunications and its economic development.
9. In medicine, indicating the presence of a particular organism or component in the results of a test or examination; such as, there was a positive test for cancer.
10. That which is measured in a direction, or designated as a quantity, equal in magnitude, but opposite to that regarded as negative.
11. Having an electrical charge of an opposite polarity to that of an electron and the same polarity as that of a proton.
12. Having an overall positive electrical charge, sometimes caused by the loss of one or more electrons.
13. A reference to photographic images that have colors or values of dark and light corresponding to the subject; such as, having the areas of light and dark in their original and normal relationship, as in a photographic print made from a negative.
14. Relating to the theory that knowledge can be acquired only through direct observation and experimentation, and not necessarily through metaphysics or theology.
15. In biology, indicating growth, response, or movement toward a stimulus; such as, light.
16. Etymology: from about 1300, a legal term meaning "formally laid down"; from Old French positif; from Latin positivus, "settled by arbitrary agreement, positive" as opposed to naturalis, "natural"; from positus, past participle form of ponere, "to put, to place". A positive character stays "put" in his/her opinions.

The sense is broadened to "expressed without qualification" (1598), then "confident in opinion" (1665); mathematical use is from 1704; in electricity, 1755. The psychological sense of "concentrating on what is constructive and good" is recorded from 1916. Positivism (1847) is the philosophy of Auguste Comte, who published Philosophie positive in 1830.