Sample Sentences for
passive
grouped by contextual meaning
(editor-reviewed)

passive as in:  she remained passive

Show 3 more with this contextual meaning
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    Even when the team argued loudly, Mia remained passive, choosing not to get involved in the conflict
    passive = accepting what happens without trying to take control
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    The initiates' passive faces stare back at me.  (source)
    passive = not assertive (showing no tendency to take action)
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    Beside the water, not a hundred yards away, the Spirit Bear stood watching him with a fearless and passive stare.  (source)
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Show 10 more with 4 word variations
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    But Ira was a passive boy; no one remembered him ever raising his voice, much less getting in a fight.  (source)
    passive = accepting what happens without trying to take control or reacting strongly
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    I asked, trying to keep my voice calm but frustrated that her husband was still using his fists against her, angry that she accepted it so passively, and hurt that she hadn't confided in me—again.  (source)
    passively = in an inactive manner (accepting what happens without trying to take control or reacting strongly)
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    I could feel his anger as his mouth discovered my passive resistance.†  (source)
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    And if the fly, like my hero, shows a strength that promises to extricate him, how swiftly does she abandon her pretence of passiveness, and openly fling coil after coil about him until he is secured for ever!†  (source)
    standard suffix: The suffix "-ness" converts an adjective to a noun that means the quality of. This is the same pattern you see in words like darkness, kindness, and coolness.
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    HARRY looks up at the portrait of DUMBLEDORE, his face passive.†  (source)
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    Paul stood passively as Kynes inspected the suit.†  (source)
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    This campaign was based on the principles of passive resistance.†  (source)
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    Children have always a sympathy in the agitations of those connected with them: always, especially, a sense of any trouble or impending revolution, of whatever kind, in domestic circumstances; and therefore Pearl, who was the gem on her mother's unquiet bosom, betrayed, by the very dance of her spirits, the emotions which none could detect in the marble passiveness of Hester's brow.†  (source)
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    He noted how passive the queen was trying to appear and had to keep himself from looking smug.†  (source)
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    And if I got into trouble by accident, I wouldn't dare just wait passively to be saved.†  (source)
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passive as in:  written using the passive voice

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She even tried to teach us the difference between active voice—"I snarfed the Oreos" and passive voice—"The Oreos got snarfed."  (source)
passive = grammar: where the subject receives the action rather than doing it
Show 2 more with this contextual meaning
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    "So of course," Nunberg said, "in went the split infinitive along with all the other schoolroom fetishes that have been giving grammar a bad name for centuries—don't end a sentence with a preposition, don't begin a sentence with and or but, and of course avoid the passive."  (source)
    passive = grammar:  where the subject receives the action rather than doing it
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    In addition, the passive voice is wherever possible used in preference to the active, and noun constructions are used instead of gerunds (BY EXAMINATION OF instead of BY EXAMINING).  (source)
    passive = grammar: where the subject receives the action rather than doing it
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