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passive Definition

pas·sive (pas′iv)

adjective

  1. influenced or acted upon without exerting influence or acting in return; inactive, but acted upon
  2. offering no opposition or resistance; submissive; yielding; patient
  3. taking no active part; inactive
    1. Chem. inert (sense )
    2. resistant to corrosion
  5. Finance of or relating to an investment that does not involve active participation in management, policy making, etc. passive losses
  6. Gram.
    1. denoting the voice or form of a verb whose subject is the recipient (object) of the action of the verb: opposed to active
    2. in or of the passive voice in “The tree was struck by lightning,” was struck is a passive construction

Etymology: ME passif < L passivus < passus: see passion

noun

  1. the passive voice
  2. a verb in this voice

passive Related Forms

pas′·sively adverb pas′·sive·ness noun

passive Synonyms

passive

modif.

  1. Being acted upon

    receptive, stirred, influenced; see affected 1.

  2. Not active

    inactive, inert, lifeless; see idle 1, latent, motionless 1.

  3. Patient

    submissive, yielding, enduring, forbearing, quiet; see also patient 1, resigned.

passive Law Definition

n

Not involving active participation, especially an enterprise in which an investor has no control whatsoever in its income-producing activity.

passive Telecom Definition

Not active or energized, i.e., not electrically powered. A reflective satellite, for example, serves only to reflect a signal, rather than act on it to respond to requests for transponder access, amplify the received signal, detect and perhaps correct for errors in the data, resynchronize the signal, shift between uplink and downlink frequencies, or retransmit the signal.A passive optical network (PON) involves passive splitters that only split an incoming signal into two or more outgoing signals at proportionately lower signal strength.

passive Usage Examples

Converse of object

use: Good uses of passives There are times of course when you should use a passive.

Adjective complement with noun phrase

make: Makes people passive and likely to wait or someone else to cure them.

Adjective modifier

safe: Safe driver passive were bought by not yet being take a long-term.

Modifies a noun

  • smoking: How can passive smoking be a danger to health?
  • recipient: They are merely passive recipients of the shares or the money.
  • verb: With a passive verb, the order is reversed: object then verb then agent.
  • euthanasia: Right to Life - petitions to fight against the campaign to legalize passive euthanasia.
  • participle: It is from the verb " sever " but it is past, passive, and adjectival, i.e. a perfective passive participle.
  • immunity: The objective is to confer some passive immunity to the agent that causes PMWS at the pig's most susceptible age.

Modifying Another Word

  • essentially: Even the many spectacular pictures generated from datasets available on the Web present an essentially passive view of what is happening.
  • purely: Aristotle assigned women ' a purely passive role in conception as incubators for the reproductive power of men ( 8 ).
  • merely: They are merely passive recipients of the shares or the money.
  • wholly: Although both mind and the sensory faculty receive their correlative forms when perceiving or thinking, neither is wholly passive in its defining activity.
  • relatively: Being out with the buggy was a relatively passive procedure.
  • totally: Fire and Earth Fire and Earth are friendly to each other, but while Fire is all action, Earth is totally passive.

Noun used with modifier

driver: Safe driver passive were bought by not yet being take a long-term.

Possessives

competition: Is this a ' live ' or ' passive ' competition?

Used with adjective complement

  • remain: He willingly follows the lead of other group members but remains passive when the work is being organized.
  • become: Networking power Candidates have become far less passive about making their own luck.

Preposition: in

face: One of the stereotypes resulting from this situation is that women are peace-loving and passive in the face of violence.