A-Z: General definitions: Passive Voice

Definition

Verbs can be formed using as either the active voice or the passive voice. Using the active voice creates a sentence such as ‘Farah returned the library book’ whereas using the passive voice creates the sentence ‘The library book was returned by Farah’. The difference is mainly one of focus, as the use of passive voice draws attention towards the object of the verb and away from the subject (sometimes the subject is even omitted completely, e.g. ‘The library book was returned.’). It is often a sign of formality.

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