Definition of Passive

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Passive

Not active, but acted upon; suffering or receiving impressions or influences; as, they were passive spectators, not actors in the scene.

Receiving or enduring without either active sympathy or active resistance; without emotion or excitement; patient; not opposing; unresisting; as, passive obedience; passive submission.

Inactive; inert; not showing strong affinity; as, red phosphorus is comparatively passive.

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.

Related Definitions:

Acted, Active, Affected, Affinity, And, As, But, By, Certain, Characterized, Comparatively, Deficient, Designating, Dropsy, Either, Emotion, Enduring, Excitement, Hemorrhage, In, Inactive, Inert, Is, Lack, Morbid, Not, Obedience, Of, Opposing, Or, Passive, Patient, Phosphorus, Reaction, Receiving, Red, Relaxation, Resistance, Scene, Showing, Strong, Submission, Suffering, Sympathy, The, They, Upon, Vitality, Were, With, Without

Passive Quotations

Today we did what we had to do. They counted on America to be passive. They counted wrong.
Ronald Reagan

Active Evil is better than Passive Good.
William Blake

Hatred is active, and envy passive dislike; there is but one step from envy to hate.
Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

Passivity is fatal to us. Our goal is to make the enemy passive.
Mao Tse-Tung

Our obligation is to give meaning to life and in doing so to overcome the passive, indifferent life.
Elie Wiesel

In this very real world, good doesn't drive out evil. Evil doesn't drive out good. But the energetic displaces the passive.
William Bernbach

To make oneself an object, to make oneself passive, is a very different thing from being a passive object.
Simone de Beauvoir

Dr. King used Gandhi's commitment to non-violence and to passive resistance.
Al Sharpton

A shocking crime was committed on the unscrupulous initiative of few individuals, with the blessing of more, and amid the passive acquiescence of all.
Tacitus

The traveler was active; he went strenuously in search of people, of adventure, of experience. The tourist is passive; he expects interesting things to happen to him. He goes "sight-seeing."
Daniel J. Boorstin

Passive Translations

passive in French is inactif
passive in Italian is passivo, inerte
passive in Spanish is inerte, pasivo
passive in Swedish is passiv

Quotes