active

1. 1.

   chemical agent capable of activity

   Synonymsactive agent

   Broaderchemical agent
2. 2.

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

   “`The boy threw the ball' uses the active voice”

   Synonymsactive voice

   Broadervoice
3. 3.

   a person who is a participating member of an organization

   “the club issues a list of members, both the actives and the retirees”

   Broaderperson

Other forms of active

plural

actives·

comparative

activer·

superlative

activest·

Forms marked · are formed by the regular rule rather than recorded in the source data. English keeps a few hundred irregulars and the rest follow the pattern, so the rule is right far more often than not — but it is a rule, and the mark says so.

Questions about active

What does active mean?

active means "tending to become more severe or wider in scope". That is the primary sense; the word has 17 in total, listed in full on this page.

How many syllables are in active?

active has 2 syllables: ac-tive. The stress falls on "ac". In IPA it is /ˈæktɪv/.

What is another word for active?

Close synonyms include combat-ready, fighting, participating, alive, dynamic. Each sense on this page lists its own synonyms, because a word with several meanings rarely has one substitute that works for all of them.

What is the opposite of active?

The recorded antonyms are inactive, passive, inactive, inactive.

Is active a common word?

active is banded "Common" — everyday vocabulary in speech and writing. The band comes from how often the word appears in a large corpus of everyday English, not from an editor's impression.

What rhymes with active?

7 words rhyme with active. Rhymes are matched on the phonemes from the last stressed vowel onward, which is the definition a reader has in their head.