Positive
Defined in 5 dictionaries — Cyclopedic (1922), Bouvier (1914), Black's (1910), Anderson (1889), Abbott (1879)
The Cyclopedic Law Dictionary
Walter A. Shumaker and George Foster Longsdorf; ed. James C. Cahill · 1922
Express; absolute; not doubtful. This word is frequently used in composition.
Bouvier's Law Dictionary and Concise Encyclopedia
John Bouvier; revised by Francis Rawle · 1914
Express; absolute; not doubtful. This word is frequently used in composition.
Black's Law Dictionary
Henry Campbell Black, M.A. · 1910
A Dictionary of Law
William C. Anderson · 1889
Express; absolute; not doubtful; affirmative; direct: as, a positive or positive— affirmation, condition, evidence, fraud, proof, statute, qq. v. Positive law. Law actually ordained or established; statutory regulations; enacted law, or enactments; the lex scripta.
Dictionary of Terms and Phrases Used in American or English Jurisprudence
Benjamin Vaughan Abbott · 1879
Has some technical uses. Positive condition. When the result is made dependent on something to happen, the condition is called positive, in distinction from one made to depend on a thing's not happening, called a nega^ tive condition. See Bouvier. Affirmative would designate this class of conditions more accurately and appropriately than positive does. Positive la-w. A rule established by authority, as distinguished from one founded on natural reason or ethical considerations; express or enacted law: a statutory rule. Positive proof. Convincing evidence. If " proof " were used, as Greenleaf recommends, in the sense of the effect of evidence, the mental conviction induced by evidence, instead of being sometimes employed as an equivalent of " evidence," there would be little or no need of the expression positive proof.