passivity

noun

pas·​siv·​i·​ty pa-ˈsi-və-tē 

1

: the quality or state of being passive : passiveness

The only thing that I find more depressing than this charlatan is the passivity of the museum-goers who pass before his works: they may have an inkling that they are being had, but they are unable to trust the evidence of their eyes.

—Jed Perl

… and now she was condemned to years of genteel English poverty by a passivity stubborn as low-grade fever.

—Vivian Gornick

The implication—that American policy makers had, out of some combination of timorous passivity and treasonous perfidy, lost China to Communism—set off one of the darkest-ever turns in American civic life.

—Daniel Kurtz-Phelan

2

chemistry : a chemically inactive state

—used especially of a metal that has lost its normal chemical activity and is resistant to corrosion

The lower limit of 11% is based on the markedly increased corrosion resistance and spontaneous passivity obtained at this level.

—Donald H. DeClerck et al.

Examples of passivity in a Sentence

Recent Examples on the Web

This practice has led to a passivity among members of Lebanon’s political elite, which has delayed the formation of a new government. —Steven Simon, Foreign Affairs, 30 Oct. 2024

In the original Speak No Evil, the passivity is the point: One of its darkest moments is Bjørn quietly crying in the car en route to the quarry, seemingly resigned to his fate. —Louis Peitzman, Vulture, 13 Sep. 2024

My approach to the situation is certainly not one of contemplative passivity. —Alexei Navalny, The New Yorker, 11 Oct. 2024

But the books complement each other in isolating a specific strain of mid-century masculinity, one that’s a strange mix of entitlement and passivity, austerity and impiety, dutifulness and indifference. —Jessica Winter, The New Yorker, 20 Sep. 2024

Word History

First Known Use

1659, in the meaning defined at sense 1

Medical Definition

passivity

noun

pas·​siv·​i·​ty pa-ˈsiv-ət-ē 

plural passivities

: the quality or state of being passive or submissive