0 allowing yourself to be controlled by other people or animals:
1 showing a willingness to be controlled by other people:
a submissive gesture
They do not necessarily have to be submissive to the President.
Researchers found that some Asian American women feel pressure to fit into stereotypes of them as submissive geisha girls.
It's disturbing that these children have learned to be submissive in order to not get hit.
The current advice if you encounter a grizzly bear is to act submissive.
The chimpanzees are likely to regard you as submissive to their dominance.
In any culture there are people who are assertive, submissive, friendly, unfriendly, vibrant, mellow, and so on.
The fight generally comes to a quick conclusion when one of the combatants adopts a submissive posture and flees.
Their ideal notion of femininity was more distinct here and represented through the image of the 'submissive wife', who should obey and please her husband.