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passive voice

Cultural

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.”

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

Example Sentences

Examples are provided to illustrate real-world usage of words in context. Any opinions expressed do not reflect the views of Dictionary.com.

Pence awkwardly stood at the last moment for the interaction, but his wife, Karen, remained seated and stone-faced, an honestly pretty impressive choice, given the clicking cameras.

From Slate • Jan. 9, 2025

Moore is playing it well and Nelson made an impressive choice but unfortunately not the correct one for this job.

From New York Times • Dec. 1, 2017

Definitions and idiom definitions from Dictionary.com Unabridged, based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2023