active voice

1. 1.

   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

   Antonymspassive voice

   Broadervoice

Questions about active voice

What does active voice mean?

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

What is another word for active voice?

Close synonyms include active. 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 voice?

The recorded antonyms are passive voice.

Is active voice a common word?

active voice is banded "Rare" — specialist or archaic — most readers will not have met it. The band comes from how often the word appears in a large corpus of everyday English, not from an editor's impression.