| passive voice |
| Definition -
The grammatical voice where the sentence's subject is the verb's object.
Notes: 1. As opposed to the active voice where the sentence's subject is the verbal agent. |
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Example - Rome was built in a day. (The subject Rome is the object of the verb built.) |
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Oxford English Dictionary - The term's first 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) |
