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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").

Scrabble 13

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Meanings

noun

grammarAn 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

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

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Rhymes & wordplay

Rhymes with passival

Cite this entry

APA

passival. (n.d.). In WatkinsX Dictionary. Retrieved November 2, 2026, from https://dictionary.watkinsx.com/word/passival

MLA

“passival.” WatkinsX Dictionary, https://dictionary.watkinsx.com/word/passival. Accessed November 2, 2026.

Chicago

WatkinsX Dictionary, s.v. “passival,” accessed November 2, 2026, https://dictionary.watkinsx.com/word/passival.

Source: passival on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.