passive voice

1. One of the two “voices” of verbs (see also active voice). A verb is in the passive voice when the subject of the sentence is acted on by the verb. For example, in “The ball was thrown by the pitcher,” the ball (the subject) receives the action of the verb, and was thrown is in the passive voice. The same sentence cast in the active voice would be, “The pitcher threw the ball.”

It is usually preferable to use the active voice wherever possible, because it gives a sense of immediacy to the sentence.

Example Sentences

Michelle is fluent in the perky command, the passive voice, the slippery non-apology, the kind of language that frames cruelty as blameless happenstance.

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While the vice president said that Israelis were “massacred,” she relied on passive voice to say only that too many Palestinians “have been killed.”

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Additionally, the articles used negative language and the passive voice to refer to Palestinians twice as often as Israelis.

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Notice the passive voice in its assertions that its channels “are blacked out due to a dispute” and that it hopes that further conversations with Charter “will restore access to its content.”

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In the courtroom his lawyer read out a carefully written, complicated text, full of caveats, conditionals and the passive voice.

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