Active
adjectiveEngaged in physical movement, energetic effort, or current operation rather than being still or dormant.
How to spell active
6 letters · 2 syllables
How to pronounce active
Say the part in capitals loudest.
What does active mean?
- adjectiveEngaged in physical movement, energetic effort, or current operation rather than being still or dormant.
Active in a sentence
-
She stays active by walking to work every morning.
-
The account remains active until you formally close it.
Where does active come from?
Language of origin: Latin
This word comes from the Latin activus, meaning 'practical' or 'full of action', which was built on the verb agere, meaning 'to do, to drive, or to set in motion'. The past participle of that verb, actus, gives us the visible 'act' inside the word, and the same root spread widely into English in relatives such as 'agent', 'agitate', and 'action'. English took the word in during the 1300s by way of Old French actif, where it described someone busy and energetic rather than idle. Over the centuries the sense broadened to cover anything in motion, in use, or currently operating, from an active volcano to an active account. The spelling stays close to its Latin shape, with the tidy -ive suffix that English uses again and again to turn a root into an adjective.
How the word is built
- act (from Latin actus: a doing, a driving)
- -ive (adjective suffix meaning 'tending to')
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