noun ·Common ·High school level

Definitions

Noun

1. 1
   The state of being passive. countable, uncountable
2. 2
   the trait of remaining inactive; a lack of initiative wordnet
3. 3
   Submissiveness. countable, uncountable
4. 4
   submission to others or to outside influences wordnet
5. 5
   A lack of initiative. countable, uncountable

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6. 6
   The belief that one's thoughts or actions are influenced or controlled by an external agent. countable, uncountable

Synonyms

All synonyms

passivenesspassivenessa wise passivenessabeyanceacceptanceacedia

Antonyms

All antonyms

activityarrogance

Example

More examples

"The difficulty of a task is no reason for passivity and doing nothing."

Etymology

From passive + -ity.

Data sourced from Wiktionary, WordNet, CMU, and other open linguistic databases. Updated March 2026.