Passive Voice
May 12, 2021

Everyone drinks water.
Water is drunk by everyone.
“Voice” is a grammatical category that applies to verbs. Voice in English expresses the relationship of the subject to the action. Voice has two values:
- active: the subject does the action
- passive: the subject receives the action
Shakespeare | wrote | Hamlet. | |||
Hamlet | was written | by | Shakespeare. |
The active voice is the “normal” voice – the one that we use most of the time. In the active voice, the object receives the action of the verb:
active | subject | verb | object |
---|---|---|---|
→ | |||
Cats | eat | mice. |
The passive voice is less common. In the passive voice, the subject receives the action of the verb:
passive | subject | verb | object |
---|---|---|---|
← | |||
Mice | are eaten | by cats. |
See how the object of the active verb becomes the subject of the passive verb:
subject | verb | object | |
---|---|---|---|
active | Everybody | drinks | water. |
passive | Water | is drunk | by everybody. |