passive voice

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.

His point was not that we should never use the passive voice, but never to do so without thinking.

Stone has a habit of lapsing into the passive voice—e.g., “Her wax job was Brazilian.”

In the second paragraph, change two of the sentences to the passive voice.

In the second sentence Burke has used a passive voice when it would certainly be more elegant to change to the active.

The distinction between the active and passive voice, in the Odjibwa language, is formed by the inflection ego.

The passive voice is formed by joining the participle preterit to the substantive verb, as I am loved.

We have regular declensions of verbs in both the active voice and the passive voice and their form is accordingly changed.

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