Passive

4 definitions found

From The Collaborative International Dictionary of English v.0.48 [gcide]:

  Passive \Pas"sive\, a. [L. passivus: cf. F. passif. See
     {Passion}.]
     1. Not active, but acted upon; suffering or receiving
        impressions or influences; as, they were passive
        spectators, not actors in the scene.
        [1913 Webster]


  
              The passive air
              Upbore their nimble tread.            --Milton.
        [1913 Webster]
  
              The mind is wholly passive in the reception of all
              its simple ideas.                     --Locke.
        [1913 Webster]
  
     2. Receiving or enduring without either active sympathy or
        active resistance; without emotion or excitement; patient;
        not opposing; unresisting; as, passive obedience; passive
        submission.
        [1913 Webster]
  
              The best virtue, passive fortitude.   --Massinger.
        [1913 Webster]
  
     3. (Chem.) Inactive; inert; unreactive; not showing strong
        affinity; as, red phosphorus is comparatively passive.
        [1913 Webster]
  
     4. (Med.) 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.
        [1913 Webster]
  
     {Passive congestion} (Med.), congestion due to obstruction to
        the return of the blood from the affected part.
  
     {Passive iron} (Chem.), 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} (Med.), 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}, or {Passive voice} (Gram.), 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.
        [1913 Webster]
  
     Syn: Inactive; inert; quiescent; unresisting; unopposing;
          suffering; enduring; submissive; patient.
          [1913 Webster] Passive balloon

From WordNet (r) 2.0 [wn]:

  passive
       adj 1: lacking in energy or will; "Much benevolence of the passive
              order may be traced to a disinclination to inflict
              pain upon oneself"- George Meredith [syn: {inactive}]
              [ant: {active}]
       2: peacefully resistant in response to injustice; "passive
          resistance" [syn: {peaceful}]
       3: expressing thatthe subject of the sentence is the patient of
          the action denoted by the verb; "academics seem to favor
          passive sentences" [ant: {active}]
       n : the voice used to indicate that the grammatical subject of
           the verb is the recipient (not the source) of the action
           denoted by the verb; "`The ball was thrown by the boy'
           uses the passive voice"; "`The ball was thrown' is an
           abbreviated passive" [syn: {passive voice}] [ant: {active
           voice}]

From Moby Thesaurus II by Grady Ward, 1.0 [moby-thes]:

  211 Moby Thesaurus words for "passive":
     Laodicean, Olympian, abeyant, abject, accepting, accommodating,
     acquiescent, active, active voice, adapting, adaptive, adjusting,
     agreeable, aloof, amenable, apathetic, asleep, assenting, bearing,
     benumbed, blah, blank, blankminded, blase, bovine, calm,
     cataleptic, catatonic, centrist, comatose, complaisant, compliable,
     compliant, complying, consenting, contemplative, cool, dead,
     deferential, desensitized, detached, disinterested, dispassionate,
     do-nothing, docile, dopey, dormant, dull, empty, empty-headed,
     enduring, even, fatuous, fifty-fifty, flat, flexible, forbearing,
     foul, gentle, groggy, half-and-half, heartless, heavy,
     hebetudinous, hopeless, humble, idle, immobile, impartial,
     impassive, imperturbable, implicit, in a stupor, in abeyance,
     in suspense, inactive, inane, incogitant, independent, indifferent,
     inert, insouciant, laissez-aller, laissez-faire, lamblike, languid,
     languorous, latent, leaden, lethargic, lifeless, listless, logy,
     long-suffering, malleable, medio-passive, meditative, meek, middle,
     middle voice, midway, moderate, motionless, neuter, neutral,
     nirvanic, nonaligned, nonchalant, noncommitted, nondissenting,
     nonpartisan, nonresistant, nonresisting, nonresistive, nonviolent,
     numb, numbed, obedient, oblivious, on the fence, out of it, ovine,
     paralytic, paralyzed, passive voice, patient, phlegmatic, placid,
     pliable, pluckless, procrastinating, quiescent, quiet, quietist,
     quietistic, receptive, reconciled, reflexive, relaxed, repressed,
     resigned, sedentary, serene, servile, sheepish, slack, sleeping,
     sleepy, sluggish, slumbering, smoldering, soporific, spiritless,
     spunkless, stagnant, stagnating, standing, standpat, static,
     stationary, still, stoic, stolid, stupefied, subdued, submissive,
     subservient, supine, suspended, tacit, tame, third-force,
     third-world, thoughtfree, thoughtless, tolerant, torpid, tractable,
     tranquil, unaffected, unaroused, unassertive, uncaring,
     uncommitted, uncomplaining, unconcerned, undisclosed, unexpressed,
     unideaed, unintellectual, uninterested, uninvolved, unmoved,
     unmoving, unoccupied, unperturbed, unreasoning, unresistant,
     unresisting, unresponsive, unrevealed, unshaken, unthinking,
     untouched, vacant, vacuous, vegetable, vegetative, voice,
     withdrawn, yielding
  
  

From Bouvier's Law Dictionary, Revised 6th Ed (1856) [bouvier]:

  PASSIVE, com. law. All the sums of which one is a debtor. It is used in 
  contradistinction to active. (q.v.) By active debts are understood those 
  which may be employed in furnishing assets to a merchant to pay those which 
  he owes, which are called passive debts.