passive voice
Definition: A sentence is in the passive voice when the logical subject receives the action of the verb, and thus becomes the verb's object.
Note: This is opposed to the active voice where the subject of the verb is the agent of the action.
Example: In the sentence Rome was in fact built in a day, the verb built is in the passive voice.
Oxford English Dictionary: The term's first OED citation is from 1388: "A participle of a present tens, either preterit, of actif vois, eithir passif, mai be resoluid into a verbe of the same tens, and a coniunccioun copulatif."
(Wyclif Prol. 57)



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