passive-aggressive

[pas-iv-uh-gres-iv]

adjective

1. denoting or pertaining to a personality type or behavior marked by the expression of negative emotions in passive, indirect ways, as through manipulation or noncooperation.

   a passive-aggressive employee who often misses deadlines.

passive-aggressive

adjective

1. psychoanal of or relating to a personality that harbours aggressive emotions while behaving in a calm or detached manner

Other Word Forms

• passive-aggression noun

Word History and Origins

Origin of passive-aggressive¹

First recorded in 1945–50

Example Sentences

Her Michelle Fuller is the type of leader who gets pictured on magazine covers, and Mr. Lanthimos shows her getting up at 4:30 for a regimen of cardio, strength training and hand-to-hand combat before reporting cheerfully to her office, where her passive-aggressive personality is increasingly the defining ethos.

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Leslie Vernick, a licensed clinical social worker and relationship coach, has written about the silent treatment and how it is born from a sense of injury and victimhood, even though it is ultimately a passive-aggressive way of not dealing with a situation.

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Metcalfe’s thesis is driven by a romanticized notion of Blundy’s life, but as McEwan slowly and carefully reveals, his poem, ostensibly a “repository of dreams,” more closely resembles a passive-aggressive act.

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There’s even something passive-aggressive about Suzanne’s show of concern for all viewpoints, a trait that becomes all the more conspicuous after a crisis erupts at the school.

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“You have to be a little bit ornery, a little bit passive-aggressive, a little bit dysfunctional, a little predatory, to write and record and perform this music. So it was a lot of the right personality types and the right personality disorders, when it was needed.”

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When To Use

What does passive-aggressive mean?

Passive aggressive behavior is a way to express feelings of anger or annoyance, but in a non-forthcoming way. Instead of communicating openly, people who engage in this type of behavior share their negative feelings through actions.Passive aggressive personality disorder was once also a psychiatric diagnosis.