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submissive

adjective · noun

Simple meaning

Meekly obedient or passive.

Pronunciation

Say it like this:

suhbmisiv

Say the bold part a little louder.

US device voice
IPA pronunciation (US)

səbˈmɪsɪv

This word is pronounced essentially the same in American and British English, so one transcription covers both.

IPA (International Phonetic Alphabet) is a standard way of writing speech sounds.

Word Review

Definition

Everyday modern meanings first, grouped by part of speech.

adjective

  1. Meekly obedient or passive; obsequious.

noun

  1. BDSM

    One who submits to a dominating partner in BDSM practices.

Word at a Glance

Difficulty
C1 · Advanced
Frequency
Uncommon

Word Aura™

How this word commonly comes across.

Aura for this meaning

This meaning: Meekly obedient or passive; obsequious.

Used this way, submissive is a reasonably familiar word that usually carries little praise or criticism of its own. It usually sounds natural in a wide range of settings.

Emotional tone
Neutral
Formality
Neutral
Intensity
Not strongly marked
How common
Moderately common
Connotation
No strong connotation
Usage feel
Neutral and straightforward

Word Aura describes common impressions, not a measurement. Tone changes with sentence, speaker, relationship and situation.

More ways to use submissive

  • “Submissive servants.”adjective

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Common Patterns and Combinations

How this word naturally appears with others.

submissive behaviorsubmissive rolesubmissive attitudesubmissive wifeless submissivesubmissive mannersubmissive spiritsubmissive woman

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More about this wordSynonyms, forms, origin

Synonyms

Sense: meekly obedient or passive

servile

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Dictionary data from Wiktionary via the Free Dictionary API. Simple meanings, combinations and word intelligence are built from verified reference data, no AI is used to load this page.