passive - Dictionary Definition : Vocabulary.com

Passive means "inactive" and is used in grammar, chemistry, or sticking it to the man. With verbs, you're advised to avoid the passive voice, something passive in chemistry isn't reacting, and passive resistance is a way to protest peacefully.

When you're passive, you don't participate much and you're not very emotional. In chemistry, passive means to be "unreactive except under special or extreme conditions; inert." Gandhi used the term passive resistance in the mid-twentieth century to describe the nonviolent approach Indians should use in their quest to become an independent nation.

PRIMARY MEANINGS OF: passive

1	adj	lacking in energy or will
2	adj	peacefully resistant in response to injustice
3	adj n	expressing that the subject of the sentence is the patient of the action denoted by the verb the voice used to indicate that the grammatical subject of the verb is the recipient (not the source) of the action denoted by the verb

FULL DEFINITIONS OF: passive

1

adj lacking in energy or will

“"Much benevolence of the passive order may be traced to a disinclination to inflict pain upon oneself"- George Meredith”

Synonyms:: inactive

: hands-off
not involving participation or intervention; resistless, supine, unresisting
offering no resistance

Antonyms:: active
disposed to take action or effectuate change; activist, activistic
advocating or engaged in activism; hands-on
involving active participation; proactive
(of a policy or person or action) controlling a situation by causing something to happen rather than waiting to respond to it after it happens; show more antonyms...

2

adj peacefully resistant in response to injustice

“passive resistance”

Synonyms:: peaceful

: nonviolent
abstaining (on principle) from the use of violence

3

adj expressing that the subject of the sentence is the patient of the action denoted by the verb

“academics seem to favor passive sentences”

Antonyms:: active
expressing that the subject of the sentence has the semantic function of actor: "Hemingway favors active constructions"

n the voice used to indicate that the grammatical subject of the verb is the recipient (not the source) of the action denoted by the verb

“`The ball was thrown by the boy' uses the passive voice”

“`The ball was thrown' is an abbreviated passive”

Synonyms:: passive voice

Antonyms:: active, active voice
the voice used to indicate that the grammatical subject of the verb is performing the action or causing the happening denoted by the verb

Type of:: voice
(linguistics) the grammatical relation (active or passive) of the grammatical subject of a verb to the action that the verb denotes