passive vocabulary

British

noun

all the words, collectively, that a person can understand Compare active vocabulary

"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

Example Sentences

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It is usual to distinguish between one's active and one's passive vocabulary, the latter being composed of the words that are understood when they are heard or seen, the former of words that are used intelligently.

From Project Gutenberg

The fact that the passive vocabulary is ordinarily much larger than the active indicates a certain amount of inert energy, of power not freely controlled by an individual.

From Project Gutenberg

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