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View synonyms for passive resistance

passive resistance

noun

  1. opposition to a government or to specific governmental laws by the use of noncooperation and other nonviolent methods, as economic boycotts and protest marches.


passive resistance

noun

  1. resistance to a government, law, etc, made without violence, as by fasting, demonstrating peacefully, or refusing to cooperate
“Collins English Dictionary — Complete & Unabridged” 2012 Digital Edition © William Collins Sons & Co. Ltd. 1979, 1986 © HarperCollins Publishers 1998, 2000, 2003, 2005, 2006, 2007, 2009, 2012


passive resistance

  1. A technique of demonstrating opposition to a government's activities simply by not cooperating with them. It is particularly associated with Mahatma Gandhi , who opposed violent revolution in his own country's fight for independence. ( Compare civil disobedience and nonviolent resistance .)


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Other Words From

  • passive re·sister noun
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Word History and Origins

Origin of passive resistance1

First recorded in 1880–85
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Example Sentences

Garner became the Gandhi of loosies, offering only the most passive resistance as the police moved to arrest him.

Although, until they acquire jobs and babies, they practice passive resistance to the third.

For years Mandela had been urging the ANC to abandon its strict policy of passive resistance.

Realism justifiably says that they must renounce violence, but when they adopt passive resistance they must renounce that too.

He wrote the words he hoped would inspire his people to passive resistance.

Tom had quickly whispered to those nearest the pole not to fight back, but to offer passive resistance.

Passive resistance takes on heroic proportions when a duchess and a man-servant confront the Law with haughty immobility.

The attitude of passive resistance is, however, still maintained, and has affected the position of the duchy of Brunswick.

And the passive resistance of those who refused to conform at length gave rise to active opposition.

This attitude of passive resistance, dead as a ball of cotton, was always put on when money was mentioned.

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