Meaning & use
negative feedback
Last updated
Meanings
noununcountable
Comments or information that say something is wrong or not good enough, often given to help someone improve.
Grammar: Uncountable: say 'some negative feedback' or 'a piece of negative feedback', not 'a negative feedback'.
Patterns
- give someone negative feedback
- receive negative feedback
- negative feedback on something
The manager gave me some negative feedback on my presentation, but it helped me do better next time.
After the survey, the company received a lot of negative feedback about its new app.
It is important to give negative feedback in a respectful way.
noununcountabletechnicalspecialist
A process in which a system reacts to a change by reducing or reversing it, keeping conditions stable.
Grammar: Technical use; often appears in biology and engineering texts.
Patterns
- negative feedback loop
- negative feedback mechanism
- negative feedback in a system
In biology, negative feedback helps control body temperature.
The thermostat uses negative feedback to keep the room at a steady temperature.
A negative feedback loop can prevent small changes from growing out of control.
Common combinations
- give negative feedback
- Good teachers know how to give negative feedback without discouraging students.
- receive negative feedback
- She received negative feedback from her boss and decided to improve her report.
- negative feedback loop
- The body uses a negative feedback loop to regulate blood sugar.
- constructive negative feedback
- Constructive negative feedback focuses on specific things you can change.
Synonyms and how they differ
- criticism
- Criticism is often broader and can feel more personal; negative feedback usually suggests helpful comments about performance.
- critique
- A critique is a detailed analysis, often written; negative feedback is usually shorter and more direct.
Opposites
Commonly confused: negative feedback or positive feedback?
negative feedback vs positive feedback
Positive feedback means comments that say something is good, or in science, a process that increases a change. It is not the opposite of 'negative feedback' in the technical sense.
Practice
Choose the sentence that uses 'negative feedback' correctly in an everyday work context.
Choose one answer.
'Negative feedback' is uncountable, so we use 'some' rather than 'a' or a plural form. Option A uses 'a' incorrectly, option C adds an unnecessary plural, and option D uses 'the' when no specific feedback has been mentioned.
Make it your own
Write a sentence using “negative feedback”, then check it and compare it with the examples above.