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active voice

in linguistics, the category of a verb in which the grammatical subject of the clause or sentence is the agent of the action and the grammatical object is its patient. The great majority of English sentences are constructed using the active voice. The active voice is illustrated by the sentence The thief stole the purse, as opposed to The purse was stolen by the thief. Compare passive voice.

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Psychology term of the day

January 19th 2025

holism

holism

n. any approach or theory holding that a system or organism is a coherent, unified whole that cannot be fully explained in terms of individual parts or characteristics. The system or organism may have properties as a complete entity or phenomenon in addition to those of its parts. Thus, an analysis or understanding of the parts does not provide an understanding of the whole. —holistic adj.