Passive /(?)/
Pas·sive
Passive
a.
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Not active, but acted upon; suffering or receiving impressions or influences; as, they were passive spectators, not actors in the scene.
The passive air Upbore their nimble tread.
The mind is wholly passive in the reception of all its simple ideas.
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Receiving or enduring without either active sympathy or active resistance; without emotion or excitement; patient; not opposing; unresisting; as, passive obedience; passive submission.
The best virtue, passive fortitude.
- Inactive; inert; unreactive; not showing strong affinity; as, red phosphorus is comparatively passive. (Chem.)
- Designating certain morbid conditions, as hemorrhage or dropsy, characterized by relaxation of the vessels and tissues, with deficient vitality and lack of reaction in the affected tissues. (Med.)
Phrases & Compounds
- Passive congestion
- congestion due to obstruction to the return of the blood from the affected part.
- Passive iron
- iron which has been subjected to the action of heat, of strong nitric acid, chlorine, etc. It is then not easily acted upon by acids.
- Passive movement
- a movement of a part, in order to exercise it, made without the assistance of the muscles which ordinarily move the part.
- Passive obedience
- (as used by writers on government), obedience or submission of the subject or citizen as a duty in all cases to the existing government.
- Passive prayer
- among mystic divines, a suspension of the activity of the soul or intellectual faculties, the soul remaining quiet, and yielding only to the impulses of grace.
- Passive verb
- a verb, or form of a verb, which expresses the effect of the action of some agent; as, in Latin, doceor, I am taught; in English, she is loved; the picture is admired by all; he is assailed by slander.