Skip to main content
Glite Dictionary
🛡️ To protect metal 😶 To make inactive 🔄 To make passive
to passivate

to passivate

7.7
Change a sentence so the object becomes the subject
  • verb
  • /ˈpæsɪˌveɪt/
  • Specialized
translation icon : pasivizar
  • When you passivate a sentence, the object becomes the new subject.

Examples

  • The teacher asked the students to passivate each sentence in the exercise.

  • In grammar class, the teacher explained how to passivate a simple sentence by moving the object to the front.

  • It can be challenging to passivate complex sentences with multiple objects.

  • You should passivate the metal surface before applying paint.

  • The technician passivated the equipment after maintenance.

  • To improve clarity, always passivate sentences that contain implicit subjects.

  • When you passivate a sentence, the original subject is usually introduced by the word 'by'.

Surface Forms

passivate infinitive
passivated past
passivated past participle
passivating present participle
passivates third person singular

Morphology

passivate = passive (transparent) = passiv + ate

Standard causative derivation from the adjective 'passive' with '-ate', yielding the sense 'make passive' or 'put into passive voice'.

Etymology

Passivate comes from the same root as passive, from Latin pass- meaning 'able to be acted on'. So to passivate a sentence is to make it 'passive' — to turn the thing that had the action into the main focus of the sentence.