Dictionary

neuter voice en · NOUN

Meanings

1. (uncommon, uncountable, usually) A voice which is neither active nor passive (nor middle voice); the voice assigned to a copulative verb.
   • ... the laughter, a voice without gender, without inflection, a neuter voice: "I wish I may, I wish I might. 1973, Mercury Press (publisher), The Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction, Volume 45, page 95:
   • It is the narrative voice, a neuter voice that speaks the work from that place-less place in which the work is silent. 1981, Maurice Blanchot, The gaze of Orpheus, and other literary essays, page 141:
   • Such verbs really have no voice, but for convenience we may say they are in the neuter voice. 1898, Missouri School Journal - Volume 15, page 150:
   • ... the neuter voice, we have in verbs of adjectival nature the distinction of inchoative and static forms, such as "to be yellow (static, descriptive)" and "to become yellow (inchoative)" 1965, American Anthropological Association, et. al. (contributors), International Journal of American Linguistics - Volumes 7-8, page 124:
   • "I am receiving a communications signal," the aerospace truck told Sinead and the XTs, using a stiff neuter voice now that Silvercup's essence had been withdrawn from it. 1994, Jack McKinney, The Black Hole Travel Agency Book 4: Hostile Takeover, page 170:
   • For instance, while the Hebrew of the Old Testament has only masculine and feminine voice, the New Testament Greek has a neuter voice as well. 2000, Mark B. Fenton, Business Education and Training - A Value-Laden Process on the Threshold of the Millennium, page 283:
   • He uſes the word UNUM, in the neuter voice; which does not belong to a ſingle peſson, but to an (u) unity of perſons. 1785, George Travis, Letters to Edward Gibbon, Esq - Author of the History of the Decline, and Fall, of the Roman Empire, page 71:
   • Historically reflexive verbs expressing neuter voice consists of three members - active voice - neuter voice - passive voice. 1998, Latviešu valodas institūta žurnals (publisher), Linguistica lettica, Volumes 3-4, page 162:
   • We have the Neuter Voice, or Passive of the Intransitive, also āchia (20/16, 20/25), jāiā (for jāiă?: 16/14), mohia (51/23); ho=bhūyate (12/29). 1953, Dāmodaranaṇḍita, Uktivyaktiprakaraṇa, page 58:
   • These likewise terminate in ся, and without the particle they are not used. They have the meaning of verbs of either the active or neuter voice. 1882, Ardalīon Ivanov, A. Ivánoff's Russian Grammar (16th Ed.-145th Thousand), page 53:
   • Yet no sooner is the neuter voice heard than it blends listlessly into background sound, a murmur clueless about things. The neuter voice is too reticent, too timid—too unjust—to be audible. 2016, David Appelbaum, In His Voice: Maurice Blanchot's Affair with the Neuter, page 26:

Forms