English Explanatory Dictionary

passival

English dictionary entry

Meanings

noun

An archaic progressive construction in middle voice (syntactically active but semantically passive), replaced by the passive progressive in modern English. For example, "the house is building", "the meal was eating", "the trunks were carrying down" (today "the house is being built", "the meal is being eaten").

Word forms

passival

Etymology

Probably from Classical Latin passīvus + -al, after adjectival, nominal, etc. By surface analysis, passive (noun) + -al.

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