Deponent verb

Deponent verbs are words in certain languages, like Latin, that act a little bit differently than regular verbs.

Most people think that verbs have an active form and a passive form, like ‘the dog chased the cat’ versus ‘the cat was chased by the dog.’ But deponent verbs only have a passive form that is used to EXPRESS an ACTIVE idea. This means that they give the feeling that someone is doing something, even though they are technically in the passive voice.

Imagine you have a really cool toy car that you love to play with. You can say ‘I’m playing with my car’ or ‘my car is being played with by me.’ These two sentences mean the exact same thing, but they are using different verb forms.

Now imagine you’re in ancient Rome and you want to say ‘I’m walking to the store’ but there’s no active form for the verb ‘to walk’ in Latin. Instead, you’d have to use a deponent verb like ‘ambulor.’

The sentence would be ‘I’m being walked to the store’ but the meaning is the same as ‘I’m walking to the store’. A deponent verb like ‘ambulor’ is special because it ONLY has this passive form, but it still means something is being done by someone.

So, deponent verbs are like toys that only come in one color, but they still let you play and imagine and have fun!