neutral

neutral adj Neutral, negative, indifferent are comparable when they mean lacking decisiveness or distinctiveness in character, quality, action, or effect.

Neutral, in one of its earliest and still common senses, applies to states, governments, parties, or persons who refuse to take sides with either of two or any of several contending parties. The term need not imply an attitude of impartiality, but it usually implies either indecision or a refraining from positive action

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his family connections kept him neutral, and the household was never drawn into the war— Buchan

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Revolutionary verse . . . makes the neutral reader wonder whether it is aimed to win him for the communist or fascist state—Day Lewis

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the bucks bridled a little when I came in, and then ignored me. Once the atmosphere had become neutral again, Thompson was willing to talk— Mailer

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When otherwise applied (as to colors or terms, to a character or personality, to a substance in chemistry, or to an entity in philosophy) neutral implies a quality, an appearance, or a reaction that belongs to neither of two opposites or extremes; the term therefore often connotes vagueness, indefiniteness, indecisiveness, ineffectualness; thus, a neutral character is one that reveals neither positive virtues nor positive vices; a chemically neutral substance (as distilled water) is neither acid nor basic; a neutral color (as taupe) is not clearly or positively any definite color, often because it verges on gray

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the artists of the Far East . . . use positive tints quite sparingly, giving them for foil large spaces of neutral tone— Binyon

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the land itself cannot be described as rich or poor, good or bad, favorable or unfavorable. The land is entirely neutral—P. E. James

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atomic .[/i] . . was until 1945 as emotionally neutral a word as pyroborate or hygrometric. But since the explosion at Hiroshima it has assumed a new implication— Savory

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Negative carries a stronger implication than neutral of absence of positive or affirmative (compare AFFIRMATIVE) characteristics or qualities; the term therefore usually implies inaction, ineffectiveness, or a failure to assume a definite or concrete form

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there is certainly a vague and widespread discontent with our present results [in education]; but it is all a negative opinion— Benson

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so much of the dream was described in negative . . . terms: no hostility, no friendliness, not feared, not welcomed, not grateful, not anxious— Kelman

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the negative happiness that follows the release from anxiety and tension— Huxley

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Indifferent (see also INDIFFERENT 1, MEDIUM) implies a character or appearance that does not readily define itself or fall into any clearly marked class or category; the term is applicable to things or occasionally to persons that stir up no feeling or elicit no decision as to whether they are good or bad, in accordance with one's principles or not, necessary or unnecessary, or pleasant or unpleasant

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though they disliked each other, they could converse at length upon indifferent subjects

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either one attitude is better than the other, or else it is indifferent—T. S. Eliot

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the injustice ... in making penal an act which when committed seemed innocent or at least indifferent— Radin

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nature is indifferent to the survival of the human species, including Americans—/!. E. Stevenson

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Contrasted words: biased, disposed, predisposed (see INCLINE vb): positive, *affirmative: *decided, decisive