Source : Webster's Revised Unabridged Dictionary (1913)

Privative \Priv"a*tive\, n.
   1. That of which the essence is the absence of something.

            Blackness and darkness are indeed but privatives.
                                                  --Bacon.

   2. (Logic) A term indicating the absence of any quality which
      might be naturally or rationally expected; -- called also
      {privative term}.

   3. (Gram.) A privative prefix or suffix. See {Privative}, a.,
      3.