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What is "submissive"

Longman Dictionary of Contemporary English
submissive
adjective
EXAMPLES FROM OTHER ENTRIES
▪ If you constantly try to make someone happy, you end up becoming submissive, saying yes when you don't really mean it.
▪ My father was a violent, demanding man, who expected my mother to be completely submissive.
▪ The stereotype that foreign women are submissive is completely false.
EXAMPLES FROM CORPUS
▪ After all, how much abuse must one endure to qualify as a truly submissive wife?
▪ Aware of a hex and sure of its power, the victim falls into learned helplessness and slides into submissive death.
▪ But what is required from a biblical standpoint for a wife to be considered submissive?
▪ In general however, women were sent back to their music and their embroidery and were told to be submissive.
▪ Some children may be submissive to this approach while others fight back and will not have their willpower broken.
▪ What is produced is a herd of predominantly submissive and passive humans who are easily managed for the benefit of their overseers.
The Collaborative International Dictionary
Submissive

Submissive \Sub*mis"sive\, a.

  1. Inclined or ready to submit; acknowledging one's inferiority; yielding; obedient; humble.

    Not at his feet submissive in distress, Creature so fair his reconcilement seeking.
    --Milton.

  2. Showing a readiness to submit; expressing submission; as, a submissive demeanor.

    With a submissive step I hasted down.
    --Prior.

    Syn: Obedient; compliant; yielding; obsequious; subservient; humble; modest; passive. [1913 Webster] -- Sub*mis"sive*ly, adv. -- Sub*mis"sive*ness, n.

Douglas Harper's Etymology Dictionary
submissive

1580s, "inclined to submit, yielding to authority," from Latin submiss-, past participle stem of submittere (see submission) + -ive. Masochistic sexual sense is attested by 1969. As a noun in this sense, by 1985. Related: Submissively; submissiveness.

Wiktionary
submissive

a. Meekly obedient or passive. n. one who submits

WordNet
submissive

  1. adj. inclined or willing to submit to orders or wishes of others or showing such inclination; "submissive servants"; "a submissive reply"; "replacing troublemakers with more submissive people" [ant: domineering]

  2. willing to submit without resistance to authority; deferent

  3. abjectly submissive; characteristic of a slave or servant; "slavish devotion to her job ruled her life"; "a slavish yes-man to the party bosses"- S.H.Adams; "she has become submissive and subservient" [syn: slavish, subservient]

Usage examples of "submissive".

Then he saw himself again, sweeping the natives out of South Africa with the relentless besom of his might, and ruling unquestioned over a submissive people.

Henry found that the parliament was no less submissive in deeds than complaisant in their expressions, and that they would go the same lengths as the former in gratifying even his most lawless passions.

Yet so prudent were the leaders of the malecontents, that they immediately sent submissive messages to the king, and craved to be admitted to a treaty.

One, that he was still submissive enough to be malleable, and two, that his clandestine sources of information within her personal household were not as well-developed as he might wish, for if there had been some way for Zyperis to discover her intentions on his own, he would certainly have done it.

This woman has far too much of the fiery humors in her to permit the submissive state required for proper mollification of the bones.

The way to perfection is by the due combination of prevenient, assisting free grace, and of submissive, assisted free will.

I was enchanted to find her submissive to my caresses and my inquisitiveness, but she surprised me greatly when, as I placed myself in readiness for the consummation of the act, and was already in the proper posture between the two columns, she moved in such a way as to hinder my advance.

Always on the look out for an unattached man of adequate means and submissive personality so popular rumour would have it.

But the blacks were not totally submissive, and as their numbers grew, the prospect of slave rebellion grew.

I suggest, instead of actual occupation, Sire, that you simply install submissive natives as your Champa administrators and overseeing forces.

The front hall is empty of everything except the Larrabie ancestral furniture, Eastlake pier table and carved mahogany side chairs clinging to the wall like huge, submissive beasts.

Though twice the height of the Hurrians and more than twice the breadth, there was a blankness about their eyes, something completely submissive about the way they stood, with their thick-sinewed necks slightly bent, their bulging arms hanging listlessly.

Socialist orator carries with it the party mandate that the workers of America should be organized industrially so as to be submissive to the command of a revolutionary leadership.

Among Japanese macaques, social class is maintained and reinforced by daily mounting: males of lower caste adopt the characteristic submissive sexual posture of the female in oestrus and are briefly and ceremonially mounted by higher-caste males.

Above all the other great teachers of morality and virtue, it reveres the character of the Great Master Who, submissive to the will of His and our Father, died upon the Cross.