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say it: PAS-iv
passive is an adjective and noun meaning "lacking in energy or will". It carries 4 recorded senses.
lacking in energy or will
“Much benevolence of the passive order may be traced to a disinclination to inflict pain upon oneself”
expressing that the subject of the sentence is the patient of the action denoted by the verb
“academics seem to favor passive sentences”
grammar
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”
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.
Definitions, synonyms and semantic relations for passive come from Princeton University’s WordNet. The pronunciation comes from the CMU Pronouncing Dictionary. Commonness is measured against a corpus of everyday English. Full sources and licences.