Functions of the passive voice

The passive voice is used to show interest in the person or object that
experiences an action rather than the person or object that performs the action.
In other words, the most important thing or person becomes the subject of the
sentence.

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Examples

 The passive voice is used frequently. (= we are interested in the passive

voice, not in who uses it.)
 The house was built in 1654. (= we are interested in the house, not in
who built it.)
 The road is being repaired. (= we are interested in the road, not in the
people who are doing the repairs.)

Sometimes we use the passive voice because we don't know or do not want to
express who performed the action.
Examples

I noticed that a window had been left open.

 Every year thousands of people are killed on our roads.
 All the cookies have been eaten.
 My car has been stolen!

The passive voice is often used in formal texts. Switching to the active voice will
make your writing clearer and easier to read.

Passive Active

A great deal of meaning is A few well-chosen words convey a

conveyed by a few well-chosen great deal of meaning.
words.
 Passive Active

Our planet is wrapped in a mass of A mass of gases wrap around our

gases. planet.

Waste materials are disposed of in a The city disposes of waste materials

variety of ways. in a variety of ways.

If we want to say who or what performs the action while using the passive voice,
we use the preposition by. When we know who performed the action and are
interested in him, it is always better to switch to the active voice instead.

Passive Active

"A Hard Day's Night" was written The Beatles wrote "A Hard Day's

by the Beatles. Night".

The movie ET was directed Spielberg directed the movie ET.

by Spielberg.

This house was built by my father. My father built this house.

Read more about the passive voice and active equivalents for all English verb
tenses.

Forming the passive voice

The passive voice in English is composed of two elements:

the appropriate form of the verb 'to be' + past participle
 Affirmative Negative Interrogative Negative
interrogative

The house was The house Was the house Wasn't the house
built in 1899. wasn't built in built in 1899? built in 1899?
1899.

These houses These houses Were these Weren't these

were built in weren't built in houses built in houses built in
1899. 1899. 1899? 1899?

To clean, passive voice

Subject + to be (conjugated) + past participle + rest of sentence

Simple present

The house is cleaned every day.

Present continuous

The house is being cleaned at the moment.

Simple past
Subject + to be (conjugated) + past participle + rest of sentence

The house was cleaned yesterday.

Past continuous

The house was being cleaned last week.

Present perfect

The house has been cleaned since you left.

Past perfect

The house had been cleaned before they arrived.

Future

The house will be cleaned next week.

Future continuous
 Subject + to be (conjugated) + past participle + rest of sentence

The house will be being cleaned tomorrow.

Present conditional

The house would be cleaned if they had visitors.

Past conditional

The house would have been cleaned if it had been dirty.

Inifinitive

The house must be cleaned before we arrive.

Passive voice with infinitives

The infinitive passive voice is used after modal verbs and other most verbs
normally followed by an infinitive.

Examples

 You have to be tested on your English grammar.

 John might be promoted next year.
 She wants to be invited to the party.
 I expect to be surprised on my birthday.
 You may be disappointed.
Passive voice with gerunds
Gerunds are used after prepositions and verbs normally followed by a gerund.

Examples

 I remember being taught to drive.

 The children are excited about being taken to the zoo.
 The children are excited to be taken to the zoo.
 Most film stars hate being interviewed.
 Most film stars hate to be interviewed.
 Poodles like to be pampered.
 Poodles like being pampered.

Using "to be born"

"To be born" is a passive form and is most commonly used in the past tense.
However, in some cases, the present or future tense is appropriate.

Examples

 I wasborn in 1976.
 Where were you born?
 Around 100 babies are born in this hospital every week.
 We don't know on exactly which day the baby will be born.

Sometimes the passive is formed using the verb to get or to have instead of the
verb to be. A separate page deals with these alternative ways to form the
passive voice.

The difference between active and passive voice

While tense is all about time references, voice describes whether the

grammatical subject of a clause performs or receives the action of the verb.

Here’s the formula for the active voice: [subject]+[verb (performed by the

subject)]+[optional object]

Chester kicked the ball.

In a passive voice construction, the grammatical subject of the

clause receives the action of the verb. So, the ball from the above sentence,

which is receiving the action, becomes the subject. The formula: [subject]+[some

form of the verb to be]+[past participle of a transitive verb]+[optional

prepositional phrase]

The ball was kicked by Chester.

That last little bit—“by Chester”—is a prepositional phrase that tells you who the

performer of the action is. But even though Chester is the one doing the kicking,

he’s no longer the grammatical subject. A passive voice construction can even

drop him from the sentence entirely:

The ball was kicked.

How’s that for anticlimactic?

Creative ways to use the passive voice in writing

The above examples show some formal uses of the passive voice, but some
writers take advantage of the shift in emphasis it provides for other reasons.

Here are moments when the passive voice is a stylistic decision that suits the

author’s writing goals. 1 Avoid getting blamed There are times when you want

to get away with something without making it crystal-clear who’s at fault. The

classic example:

“Mistakes were made.” —most politicians

Who made them? Is anyone taking responsibility? What’s the solution here?

One political scientist dubbed this structure the “past exonerative” because it’s

meant to exonerate a speaker from whatever foul they may have committed. In

other words, drop the subject, get off the hook.

2 Beat around the bush

Jane Austen is a master of poking fun at her characters so euphemistically that it

seems almost polite, and the passive voice is one of her favorite methods for

doing that.

“[He] pressed them so cordially to dine at Barton Park every day till they were
better settled at home that, though his entreaties were carried to a point of
perseverance beyond civility, they could not give offense.” —Jane Austen, Sense
and Sensibility

Austen could have rephrased this sentence like so:

“Though Mr. Middleton carried his entreaties to a point of perseverance beyond

civility, they could not give offense.”

Though maybe she means something closer to:

“Mr. Middleton pushed his invitations beyond the point of politeness and into

pushiness, but he still meant well.”

In cases like this, the passive voice allows for more polite phrasing, even if it’s

also a little less clear.

3 Make your reader pay more attention to the something

This is like the president getting sworn in: the thing that gets the action of the

verb is more important than the people performing the action.

“That treasure lying in its bed of coral, and the corpse of the commander
floating sideways on the bridge, were evoked by historians as an emblem of
the city drowned in memories.” —Gabriel García Márquez, Love in the Time of
Cholera

Here, you could invert the sentence to say “Historians evoked that treasure (and

so on).” But that would take the focus away from that oh-so-intriguing treasure

and the corpse. And since the historians are less important here, the author
makes the choice to stress the key idea of the sentence through the passive

voice.

Here’s another famous example that puts the emphasis on what happens to the

subject, instead of on what the subject is doing:

“We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that
they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among
these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.” —The Declaration of
Independence, 1776

“All men” (and these days, women, too) get boosted to the front of the phrase

because their equality and rights are the focus. It makes sense that a statement

declaring independence would focus on the people who get that independence,

after all.

The Structure of the Passive Voice

As previously stated, the passive voice in English is formed by combining a

form of the verb to be with the past participle of a transitive verb. Its
overall structure and its contrast with the active voice is probably easier to
see if they are displayed in a paradigm of traditional English verb tenses.

Simple Tenses

Active Voice, Passive Voice

to stop, to be stopped

I stop, I am stopped
I stopped, I was stopped
I will stop, I will be stopped
I would stop, I would be stopped

to have stopped, to have been stopped

I have stopped, I have been stopped

I had stopped, I had been stopped
I will have stopped, I will have been stopped
I would have stopped, I would have been stopped

Theoretically, passive voice constructions can appear in any tense, but in

actual practice with "progressive tense forms," they seem to be confined
mostly to the present and past tenses. (Progressive tense forms involve the
verb be plus a main verb in -ing.)

Progressive Tenses

Active Voice, Passive Voice

I am stopping, I am being stopped

I was stopping, I was being stopped

Modal Auxiliary Verbs

Passive voice constructions can also be used with "modal auxiliary verbs"
(can, might, etc.), such as in the following examples:

Active Voice, Passive Voice

I can stop, I can be stopped

I could stop, I could be stopped
I may stop, I may be stopped
I might stop, I might be stopped
I must stop, I must be stopped
I should stop, I should be stopped

Notice that the passive voice constructions always appear after the modal
auxiliary verbs.

Summary of Definition of Passive Voice

1. A passive voice construction contains a form of the verb to be (or to

get) plus a past participle of a transitive verb.
2. It expresses an action carried out on the subject of the sentence.

The Structure of the Passive Voice

As previously stated, the passive voice in English is formed by combining a

form of the verb to be with the past participle of a transitive verb. Its
overall structure and its contrast with the active voice is probably easier to
see if they are displayed in a paradigm of traditional English verb tenses.

Simple Tenses

Active Voice, Passive Voice

to stop, to be stopped

I stop, I am stopped
I stopped, I was stopped
I will stop, I will be stopped
I would stop, I would be stopped

to have stopped, to have been stopped

I have stopped, I have been stopped

I had stopped, I had been stopped
I will have stopped, I will have been stopped
I would have stopped, I would have been stopped

Theoretically, passive voice constructions can appear in any tense, but in

actual practice with "progressive tense forms," they seem to be confined
mostly to the present and past tenses. (Progressive tense forms involve the
verb be plus a main verb in -ing.)

Progressive Tenses

Active Voice, Passive Voice

I am stopping, I am being stopped

I was stopping, I was being stopped

Modal Auxiliary Verbs

Passive voice constructions can also be used with "modal auxiliary verbs"
(can, might, etc.), such as in the following examples:

Active Voice, Passive Voice

I can stop, I can be stopped

I could stop, I could be stopped
I may stop, I may be stopped
I might stop, I might be stopped
I must stop, I must be stopped
I should stop, I should be stopped

Notice that the passive voice constructions always appear after the modal
auxiliary verbs.

Summary of Definition of Passive Voice

1. A passive voice construction contains a form of the verb to

be (or to get) plus a past participle of a transitive verb.
2. It expresses an action carried out on the subject of the sentence.