ACTIVE • DICTIONARY ONE.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

... to redeem his promise. For Lady Calmady's convalescence was slow. An apathy held her, which was tranquillising rather than tedious. She was glad to lie still and rest. She found it very soothing to be shut away from the many obligations of active life for a while; to watch the sunlight, on fair days, shift from east by south to west, across the warm fragrant room; to see the changing clouds in the delicate spring sky, and the slow-dying crimson and violet of the sunset; ...

— The History of Sir Richard Calmady - A Romance • Lucas Malet

... these are the tiger snake, Hoplocephalus curtus, the most widespread, active, and dangerous of them all: the brown snake, Diemenia superciliosa, pretty ...

— A Dictionary of Austral English • Edward Morris

... community. Civic consciousness had not been born in them, for the simple reason that the city was constituted perfectly to suit them. Only when men are dissatisfied with their government do they seek to become responsible for it. There was no active public opinion against them. Men were too busy to bother with such things. Occasionally a fairly vigorous protest against some peculiarly outrageous steal made itself heard, but the men who made it ...

— The Gray Dawn • Stewart Edward White

... was using her own with the tactical nimbleness of the feminine mind. She knew the twins were down on the boiler deck again, one faint, yet both pursuing, egged on by him of the stallion's eye and him of the eagle's, and all the more socially and dangerously active because, by strict orders to every one, cut off from the gaming-table and the bar. She could not do a hundred things at once—though she could do six or seven—and it was well to grapple this one task first. Thus she kept Hugh ...

— Gideon's Band - A Tale of the Mississippi • George W. Cable

... one's self against a wall. She never swerved from her position, her voice never lost its tone of studied toleration; and now he sat, the poor fellow! listening dreamily to the conversation between the other two men, too weary and depressed to take any active share in it himself. ...

— A Houseful of Girls • Mrs. George de Horne Vaizey

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