passival
passival 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").
Noun
passival
- 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").
Origin of passival
Probably from Classical Latin passīvus + -al, after adjectival, nominal, etc. By surface analysis, passive (noun) + -al.
Words that rhyme with passival
- revival
- arrival
- survival
- rival
- adjectival
- buccogingival
- corrival
- estival
- gingival
- infinitival
- nival
- ogival
38 more rhymesFewer rhymes
- subnival
- substantival
- ablatival
- accusatival
- aestival
- arch-rival
- archrival
- conjunctival
- corival
- corneoconjunctival
- datival
- deprival
- derival
- diminutival
- distogingival
- genitival
- gerundival
- imperatival
- intraconjunctival
- keratoconjunctival
- myoconjunctival
- negatival
- non-arrival
- nonarrival
- nonconjunctival
- nonrival
- outrival
- perspectival
- pharyngoconjunctival
- possessival
- predicatival
- relatival
- scleroconjunctival
- subconjunctival
- subgingival
- thyroprival
- transconjunctival
- unarrival
Questions about passival
- What does passival mean?
- Passival means 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").
- What part of speech is passival?
- Passival is a noun.
Words near passival in the dictionary
Source and license
Adapted from Wiktionary: passival (page history and authors). Text available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 license. Word.ws reformatted the entry and added links. Wiktionary data of 2026-09-02.
Last updated:
Cite this entry: “passival.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/passival. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.