previous next

143. Infinitive active apparently as a passive.

The infinitive being a verbal noun is not so strictly bound by the voices as the finite form. The infinitive as a complement to adjectives and the so-called epexegetic infinitive often coincide with the English idiom in which “good to eat” is “good for food,” “fair to see” is “fair to the sight,” and in Greek the active form is more common and, if anything, more natural than the passive. “καλὸς ἰδεῖν”, fair to see;χαλεπὰ εὑρεῖν”, PLATO, Rpb. 412B, hard to find; but “χαλεποὶ . . . γνωσθῆναι”, ANTIPHON, 2 a 1, hard to recognize. See Infinitive.

Creative Commons License
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 3.0 United States License.

An XML version of this text is available for download, with the additional restriction that you offer Perseus any modifications you make. Perseus provides credit for all accepted changes, storing new additions in a versioning system.

hide Display Preferences
Greek Display:
Arabic Display:
View by Default:
Browse Bar: