How to Use passive in a Sentence

passive

adjective

• In “He was hit by the ball,” “hit” is a passive verb.
• Life is too short for any of us, and all of us, to be passive.
  — Cate Rubenstein, Rolling Stone, 11 Jan. 2023
• The Rangers finished up the first half a little too passive at the plate.
  — Evan Grant, Dallas News, 12 July 2021
• There didn’t seem to be a passive listener in the house.
  — Joshua Barone, New York Times, 10 Oct. 2022
• Roberts argued that Black’s role in the siege was passive.
  — Carol Robinson | [e-mail], al, 21 Jan. 2021
• The long-term plan is to maintain the park as a passive space for the neighborhood.
  — Mike Jones, Arkansas Online, 17 Dec. 2022
• Folks in the area don't have a choice in being passive about it, either.
  — Southern Living, 29 Mar. 2018
• There are a bunch of passive funds whose expenses run the gamut.
  — Bailey McCann, WSJ, 5 Nov. 2022
• Going along for the ride is less than a surefire way to live up to the passive side of one's nature.
  — Larry Griffin, Car and Driver, 21 Feb. 2023
• So far, no passive-aggressive knocks from the other side of the wall.
  — Hannah Herrera Greenspan, chicagotribune.com, 5 Aug. 2020
• The look she was told to go after was a kind of passive placidity.
  — Kathleen Hou, The Cut, 25 June 2018
• Last year's version used passive cooling, while the new one has a fan.
  — Scharon Harding, Ars Technica, 15 Dec. 2022
• This is not a time for ownership to be cheap, or the front office to be passive.
  — Bob Nightengale, USA TODAY, 29 July 2019
• DJ Humphries got a deal, but the pass protection was passive, at best.
  — Greg Moore, The Arizona Republic, 12 Sep. 2022
• Nope, a passive speaker is just a box with a speaker cone or two.
  — Parker Hall, Wired, 15 Oct. 2020
• This weekend would see active usage of the space, and the next two weeks would be more passive.
  — Dallas News, 8 Oct. 2022
• For the most part, there’s a very passive approach to incidents.
  — Melissa Sanchez, ProPublica, 12 Oct. 2022
• The park will be a passive site that will include perhaps a bench and sign, but no lighting.
  — cleveland, 22 Oct. 2019
• There were a lot of rather sweet, very good, but slightly passive players.
  — Maureen Lee Lenker, EW.com, 17 Dec. 2021
• These funds tend to have a higher expense ratio than the large passive funds.
  — Bailey McCann, WSJ, 8 Jan. 2022
• Rae convinced him that this was an easy way to earn passive income.
  — Jason Parham, WIRED, 13 Sep. 2023
• Being passive at the most senior level is not going to get the job done.
  — Chauncey Alcorn Cnn Business, CNN, 9 Sep. 2020
• These self-guide weapons use active and passive sonar to strike targets more than 5 miles away.
  — Alex Hollings, Popular Mechanics, 5 Apr. 2023
• About one quarter of the available shares were owned by passive investors.
  — Andrew Stuttaford, National Review, 12 Feb. 2021
• Adults should not be passive, hoping that the problem will take care of itself.
  — Arthur C. Brooks, The Atlantic, 26 Aug. 2021
• That’s an oddly passive way to say her son killed the bad guy — one that feels all too familiar.
  — Leah Marilla Thomas, refinery29.com, 10 May 2021
• But in the last few decades, glia have shed their identity as passive servants.
  — Yasemin Saplakoglu, Quanta Magazine, 21 Nov. 2023
• But in the past few decades, glia have shed their identity as passive servants.
  — Yasemin Saplakoglu, WIRED, 14 Jan. 2024
• Close drapes, shades and blinds during the day to keep passive solar energy from heating up your home.
  — Joseph Hernandez, Kansas City Star, 1 Apr. 2024
• In the zodiac, signs are split into two categories: active (Fire and Air) and passive (Water and Earth).
  — Skyler Caruso, Peoplemag, 3 Apr. 2024

Last Updated: 5 Sep 2024