8 uses
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Definition
accepting what happens without trying to take control or reacting strongly
- But by the time she had got back to the village she was passively trusting to the favour of accident.1 — The Maiden (65% in)
- She passively sat down amid the leaves he had heaped, and shivered slightly.1 — The Maiden (97% in)
- She turned her head in the same passive way, as one might turn at the request of a sketcher or hairdresser, and he kissed the other side, his lips touching cheeks that were damp and smoothly chill as the skin of the mushrooms in the fields around.2 — Maiden No More (13% in)
- Tess had drifted into a frame of mind which accepted passively the consideration that if she should have to burn for what she had done, burn she must, and there was an end of it.2 — Maiden No More (70% in)
- In the twilight of the morning, light seems active, darkness passive; in the twilight of evening it is the darkness which is active and crescent, and the light which is the drowsy reverse.3 — The Rally (58% in)
- Her naturally bright intelligence had begun to admit the fatalistic convictions common to field-folk and those who associate more extensively with natural phenomena than with their fellow-creatures; and she accordingly drifted into that passive responsiveness to all things her lover suggested, characteristic of the frame of mind.4 — The Consequence (68% in)
- His mood transmuted itself into a dogged indifference till at length he fancied he was looking on his own existence with the passive interest of an outsider.5 — The Woman Pays (43% in)
- She passively assented, and putting the room in order, they took up the few articles that belonged to them, and departed noiselessly.7 — Fulfilment (78% in)
There are no more uses of "passive" in Tess of the d'Urbervilles.
Typical Usage
(best examples)