Abnegate is derived from Latin ab-, away (as in absent), plus nego, to deny – self-abnegation, then, is self-denial. Nego itself is a contraction of Latin neg-, not, no, and aio, I say; to be self-abnegating is to say ‘No!’ to what you want, as if some inner censor were at work whispering, ‘No, you can’t have that, you can’t do that, you don’t deserve that, you’re not good enough for that . . .’.
To negate (ni-GAYT’) is to deny the truth or existence of, as in ‘The atheist negates God’; or, by extension, to destroy by working against, as in, ‘His indulgence in expensive hobbies negates all his wife’s attempts to keep the family solvent’.
Negative and negativity obviously spring from the same source as negate.
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