The Rice University Neologisms Database

To make negative; to negate. Coming from a mathematics lecturer at Rice, negativize had a very fixed meaning: to make the numerical value of something negative. Interestingly, he chose to coin a one-word neologism instead of using the all-Latin established word "negate" (a back-formation from negatus). He appended the Greek verb-making morpheme "ize" to an ultimately Latin word, and the result was a very natural-sounding word despite this mixture - a clear sign that both negative and the -ize suffix are almost native words in our minds. The word can also be used to connote emotional negativity, such as in someone's criticism of how the feminist movement portrays itself as operating - "Negativize everything. See everything in terms of victimization, enslavement, being oppressed, sexual harassment, and rape" - to physical negativity, where one could "negativize" an uncharged particle into one with a negative charge. Negate carries connotations of making something ineffectual by counter-action, which is somewhat different than negativize in the preceeding contexts. Negate also seems like a borrowed, foreign word – which wouldn’t flow very naturally in speech – perhaps motivating the coining of this neologism.