A grammatical form expressing the passive voice, where the subject is the recipient of an action (e.g., Japanese forms like ～される / ～られる).
「犬に腕を噛まれた」は受身形の文だ。
“I had my arm bitten by a dog” is a sentence in the passive form.
受身形は時に丁寧さや間接性を表す働きもある。
The passive form can sometimes express politeness or indirectness.
先生は学生に受身形の作り方を説明した。
The teacher explained to the students how to form the passive.