Allen & Greenough · Part First — Words and Forms › Signification of the Forms of the Verb

§156. Voices

The Active and Passive Voices in Latin generally correspond to the active and passive in English; but—

a. The passive voice often has a reflexive meaning:—

ferrō accingor, I gird myself with my sword.
Turnus vertitur, Turnus turns (himself).
induitur vestem, he puts on his (own) clothes.

b. Many verbs are passive in form, but active or reflexive in meaning. These are called Deponents (§ 190):¹ as, hortor, I exhort; sequor, I follow.

c. Some verbs with active meaning have the passive form in the perfect tenses; these are called Semi-Deponents: as, audeō, audēre, ausus sum, dare.

J. H. Allen and J. B. Greenough, New Latin Grammar (Boston: Ginn, 1903). Text provided under a CC BY-SA license by Perseus Digital Library, http://www.perseus.tufts.edu, with funding from the National Endowment for the Humanities.