passive voice

Cultural  

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.”

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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

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

From BBC • Jun. 27, 2023

The passive voice — “was waved off,” “was materially misled” — represents the limits of the reporting, not of the testimony.

From Los Angeles Times • Jun. 1, 2023

In the end, the recording returns to the passive voice, noting, “Inmate Whitley has expired at 11:07.”

From Slate • May 15, 2023

Blame is typically cast in the passive voice: Weather scientists crafted attention-grabbing terms, which were drawn into the ratings-driven media vortex.

From New York Times • Jan. 18, 2023

As the linguist Geoffrey Pullum has noted, there is nothing wrong with a news report that uses the passive voice to say, “Helicopters were flown in to put out the fires.”

From "The Sense of Style" by Steven Pinker