ACTIVE • E-FREE TRANSLATION.COM • Definition of Active

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/ˈæktɪv/ Listen

adjective

Active adj.

1.

Having the power or quality of acting; causing change; communicating action or motion; acting; opposed to passive, that receives; as, certain active principles; the powers of the mind.

2.

Quick in physical movement; of an agile and vigorous body; nimble; as, an active child or animal. "Active and nervous was his gait."

3.

In action; actually proceeding; working; in force; opposed to quiescent, dormant, or extinct; as, active laws; active hostilities; an active volcano.

4.

Given to action; constantly engaged in action; energetic; diligent; busy; opposed to dull, sluggish, indolent, or inert; as, an active man of business; active mind; active zeal.

5.

Requiring or implying action or exertion; opposed to sedentary or to tranquil; as, active employment or service; active scenes.

6.

Given to action rather than contemplation; practical; operative; opposed to speculative or theoretical; as, an active rather than a speculative statesman.

7.

Brisk; lively; as, an active demand for corn.

8.

Implying or producing rapid action; as, an active disease; an active remedy.

9.

(Gram.)

(a)

Applied to a form of the verb; opposed to passive. See Active voice, under Voice.

(b)

Applied to verbs which assert that the subject acts upon or affects something else; transitive.

(c)

Applied to all verbs that express action as distinct from mere existence or state.

Active capital, Active wealth, money, or property that may readily be converted into money.

Synonyms: Agile; alert; brisk; vigorous; nimble; lively; quick; sprightly; prompt; energetic.

See images of 'Active'

Etymology of 'Active'

Collaborative International Dictionary of English 0.48

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"Active" Quotes from Famous Books

... down his head to a permanent rakish angle. He caught sight of me—trumpeted like a siren in the Channel fog—and came at me with raised ears and trunk outstretched. I heard shooting to the left, and more shots from the forest, where the very active ghost or madman was keeping up a battle of his own. I felt the fear, that turns a man's very heart to ice, grip hold of me—felt as if nothing mattered—imagined the whole universe a sea of charging elephants—accepted the inevitable—and ...

— The Ivory Trail • Talbot Mundy

... out of his mouth when the following events happened all in a couple of seconds. The kitchen door was opened roughly, a heavy but active man darted up the stairs without any manner of disguise, and a single ponderous blow sent the door not only off its hinges, but right across the room on to Denys's fortification, which it struck so rudely as nearly ...

— The Cloister and the Hearth • Charles Reade

... The most active god, the Dane's chief god (as Frey is the Swede's god, and patriarch), is "Woden". He appears in heroic life as patron of great heroes and kings. Cf. "Hyndla-Lay", where it ...

— The Danish History, Books I-IX • Saxo Grammaticus ("Saxo the Learned")

... don't," but there is little chance of making a mistake. However, with three genders, five declensions for nouns, a fixed method of comparison for adjectives and adverbs, an elaborate system of pronouns, with active and deponent, regular and irregular verbs, four conjugations, and a complex synthetical method of forming the moods and tenses, the pitfalls for the unwary Roman were without number, as the present-day ...

— The Common People of Ancient Rome - Studies of Roman Life and Literature • Frank Frost Abbott

... drew rein before a squalid and dilapidated hut. Eddie gasped. It was Jose's, and Jose was a notorious scoundrel whom old age alone kept from the active pursuit of the only calling he ever had known—brigandage. Why should the boss's daughter come to Jose? Jose was hand in glove with every cutthroat in Chihuahua, or at least within a radius of two hundred miles of ...

— The Mucker • Edgar Rice Burroughs

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