In writing, the term “active voice” refers to a sentence construction in which the subject of the sentence performs the action described by the verb. For example, in the sentence “The cat chased the mouse,” the subject is “the cat” and the verb is “chased,” so the sentence is written in the active voice. In contrast, a sentence written in the passive voice would have the subject receiving the action, rather than performing it. For example, “The mouse was chased by the cat” is written in the passive voice.