Definitions

from The Century Dictionary.

  • noun The state or property of being passive, or of receiving impressions from external agents or causes: as, the passiveness of matter.—2. Passibility; capacity of suffering.
  • noun Patience; calmness; unresisting submission; lack of power to act, or omission to act.

from the GNU version of the Collaborative International Dictionary of English.

  • noun The quality or state of being passive; unresisting submission.

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License.

  • noun The condition of being passive; passivity

from WordNet 3.0 Copyright 2006 by Princeton University. All rights reserved.

  • noun submission to others or to outside influences
  • noun the trait of remaining inactive; a lack of initiative

Etymologies

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Examples

  • Human beings, who, like everything else, exist svabhâvât, 'by themselves,' are supposed to be capable of arriving at Nirv_r_itti, or passiveness, which is nearly synonymous with Nirvâ_n_a.

    Chips From A German Workshop - Volume I Essays on the Science of Religion 1861

  • I am resolved to think it out to an end, and then act: it is this passiveness which is killing me.

    Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science Volume 12, No. 31, October, 1873 Various

  • Miss Mannering acquiesced with a passiveness which is no part of her character, and which, to tell you the plain truth, is a feature about the business which I like least of all.

    Chapter XVI 1917

  • Miss Mannering acquiesced with a passiveness which is no part of her character, and which, to tell you the plain truth, is a feature about the business which I like least of all.

    Guy Mannering 1815

  • Miss Mannering acquiesced with a passiveness which is no part of her character, and which, to tell you the plain truth, is a feature about the business which I like least of all.

    Guy Mannering, Or, the Astrologer — Volume 01 Walter Scott 1801

  • Miss Mannering acquiesced with a passiveness which is no part of her character, and which, to tell you the plain truth, is a feature about the business which I like least of all.

    Guy Mannering, Or, the Astrologer — Complete Walter Scott 1801

  • Miss Mannering acquiesced with a passiveness which is no part of her character, and which, to tell you the plain truth, is a feature about the business which I like least of all.

    Guy Mannering — Complete Walter Scott 1801

  • Qaradawi wasn't the only cleric to criticize Arab regimes for their "passiveness" against

    news.beiruter.com - A directory of Lebanese blogs 2009

  • Zoe, when she found she could no longer have all the conversation to herself, stretched herself on the sofa, where she appeared to be busily employed in cutting the leaves of her new book, but from time to time, she contrived to throw such glances upon poor Everhard as perfectly bewildered him, and contributed not a little to reduce him to that state of passiveness which is the perfection of a good listener; Gifford thought he had never met with such a good one before!

    Zoe: The History of Two Lives 1845

  • "passiveness" of woman's love, but the passive woman is only one who does not love -- she merely consents to have affection lavished upon her.

    Little Journeys to the Homes of the Great - Volume 05 Little Journeys to the Homes of English Authors Elbert Hubbard 1885

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