Pronunciations (13)
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/pɑːs/
-
[pʰɑːs]
Pronunciation notes
- General-South-African
- Received-Pronunciation
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[pʰäːs]
Pronunciation notes
- Australia
- New-Zealand
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[pʰɐːs]
Pronunciation notes
- Australia
- New-Zealand
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[pʰaːs]
Pronunciation notes
- Boston
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/pæs/
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[pʰæs]
Pronunciation notes
- Canada
- General-American
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[pʰɛəs]
Pronunciation notes
- Canada
- General-American
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[pʰeəs]
Pronunciation notes
- Canada
- General-American
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[pʰas]
Pronunciation notes
- Ireland
- Northern-England
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[pʰæs]
Pronunciation notes
- Ireland
- Northern-England
-
[pʰäs]
Pronunciation notes
- Scotland
-
[pʰeə̯s]
Pronunciation notes
- New-York-City
Verb
To change place. To move or be moved from one place to another.
Usage- Intransitive
- Examples
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They passed from room to room.
To change place. To go past, by, over, or through; to proceed from one side to the other of; to move past.
Usage- Transitive
- Examples
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You will pass a house on your right.
More examples (2)
We expressed our readiness, and in ten minutes were in the station wagon, rolling rapidly down the long drive, for it was then after nine. We passed on the way the van of the guests from Asquith.
The dinghy was trailing astern at the end of its painter, and Merrion looked at it as he passed. He saw that it was a battered-looking affair of the prahm type, with a blunt snout, and like the parent ship, had recently been painted a vivid green.
To change place. To cause to move or go; to send; to transfer from one person, place, or condition to another.
Usage- Ditransitive
- Examples
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The waiter passed biscuits and cheese.
John passed Suzie a note.
More examples (3)
The torch was passed from hand to hand.
I had only time to pass my eye over the medals.
Waller […] passed over five thousand horse and foot by Newbridge.
To change place. To eliminate (something) from the body by natural processes.
Usage- Intransitive
- Transitive
- Examples
-
He was passing blood in both his urine and his stool.
The poison had been passed by the time of the autopsy.
To change place. To take a turn with (a line, gasket, etc.), as around a sail in furling, and make secure.
Usage- Transitive
To change place. To make various kinds of movement. To kick (the ball) with precision rather than at full force.
Usage- Transitive
- Examples
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20 June 2010, The Guardian, Rob Smyth Iaquinta passes it coolly into the right-hand corner as Paston dives the other way.
To change place. To make various kinds of movement. To move (the ball or puck) to a teammate.
Usage- Transitive
- Examples
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Brady passed the ball to nine different receivers and handed it off to seven.
To change place. To make various kinds of movement. To make a lunge or swipe.
Usage- Intransitive
- Synonyms
To change place. To make various kinds of movement. To throw the ball, generally downfield, towards a teammate.
Usage- Intransitive
- Examples
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The Patriots passed on third and long.
To change place. To go from one person to another.
Usage- Intransitive
To change place. To put in circulation; to give currency to.
Usage- Transitive
- Synonyms
- Examples
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pass counterfeit money
To change place. To cause to obtain entrance, admission, or conveyance.
Usage- Transitive
- Examples
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pass a person into a theater or over a railroad
To change place. To put through a sieve.
Usage- Transitive
- Examples
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When it's finished cooking, you should pass the sauce to get rid of any lumps.
To change in state or status To progress from one state to another; to advance.
Usage- Intransitive
- Examples
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He passed from youth into old age.
To change in state or status To depart, to cease, to come to an end.
Usage- Intransitive
- Examples
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At first, she was worried, but that feeling soon passed.
Beauty's a charm, but soon the charm will pass.
More examples (2)
The slightest effort made the patient cough. He would stand leaning on a stick and holding a hand to his side, and when the paroxysm had passed it left him shaking.
The crisis passed as she'd prayed it would, but it remained to be seen just how much damage had been done.
To change in state or status To die.
Usage- euphemistic
- Intransitive
- Examples
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His grandmother passed yesterday.
To change in state or status To achieve a successful outcome from.
Usage- Intransitive
- Transitive
- Examples
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He attempted the examination, but did not expect to pass.
Of the Ancient Wonders, only the pyramids have passed the test of time.
To change in state or status To advance through all the steps or stages necessary to become valid or effective; to obtain the formal sanction of (a legislative body).
Usage- Intransitive
- Transitive
- Synonyms
- be accepted by
- Examples
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Despite the efforts of the opposition, the bill passed.
The bill passed both houses of Congress.
More examples (2)
The bill passed the Senate, but did not pass in the House.
But was it responsible governance to pass the Longitude Act without other efforts to protect British seamen? Or might it have been subterfuge—a disingenuous attempt to shift attention away from the realities of their life at sea.
To change in state or status To be conveyed or transferred by will, deed, or other instrument of conveyance.
Usage- Intransitive
- Examples
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The estate passes by the third clause in Mr Smith's deed to his son.
When the old king passed away with only a daughter as an heir, the throne passed to a woman for the first time in centuries.
To change in state or status To cause to advance by stages of progress; to carry on with success through an ordeal, examination, or action; specifically, to give legal or official sanction to; to ratify; to enact; to approve as valid and just.
Usage- Transitive
- Examples
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He passed the bill through the committee.
Pass the happy news.
To change in state or status To make a judgment on or upon a person or case.
Usage- Intransitive
- Examples
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And within three dayes twelve knyghtes passed uppon hem; and they founde Sir Palomydes gylty, and Sir Saphir nat gylty, of the lordis deth.
To change in state or status To utter; to pronounce; to pledge.
Usage- Transitive
- Examples
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I may almost depend on your own justice, and leave it to yourself to pass sentence on your own conduct
Father, thy word is passed.
To change in state or status To change from one state to another (without the implication of progression).
Usage- Intransitive
- Examples
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More examples (3)
And rising out of the fourth stage of deep meditation he entered into the state of mind to which the infinity of space is alone present. And passing out of the mere consciousness of the infinity of space he entered into the state of mind to which the infinity of though is along present.
Rather, he argues that 'within the zero-stage, all special affections have passed over into a general undifferentiated affection; all special consciousnesses have passed over into the one, general, persistently available background-consciousness of our past, the consciousness of the completely unarticulated, completely indistinct horizon of the past, which brings to a close the living, moving retentional past.'
What we call 'our' minds are events beginning with birth and ending with death, each again broken up into other events or mental states, into and out of which we are perpetually passing.
To move through time. To elapse, to be spent.
Usage- Intransitive
- of time
- Examples
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Their vacation passed pleasantly.
To move through time. To spend.
Usage- Transitive
- of time
- Examples
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What will we do to pass the time?
To pass commodiously this life.
More examples (2)
Thanks to that penny he had just spent so recklessly [on a newspaper] he would pass a happy hour, taken, for once, out of his anxious, despondent, miserable self. It irritated him shrewdly to know that these moments of respite from carking care would not be shared with his poor wife, with careworn, troubled Ellen.
For, although Allan had passed his fiftieth year,[…], one had continued to think of him as a man of whipcord and iron, a natural source of untiring energy, a mechanism that would not wear out.
To move through time. To allow to go by without noticing; to omit attention to; to take no note of; to disregard.
Usage- Transitive
- Synonyms
- Examples
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Please you that I may pass / This doing.
I pass their warlike pomp, their proud array.
To move through time. To continue.
Usage- Intransitive
To move through time. To proceed without hindrance or opposition.
Usage- Intransitive
- Examples
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You're late, but I'll let it pass.
To move through time. To live through; to have experience of; to undergo; to suffer.
Usage- Transitive
- Examples
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Please you that I may pass / This doing.
To move through time. To happen.
Usage- Intransitive
- Examples
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It will soon come to pass.
[…] for the memory of what passed while at that place is almost blank.
To be accepted. To be tolerated as a substitute for something else, to "do".
Usage- Intransitive
- stative
- Examples
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It isn't ideal, but it will pass.
To be accepted. To be accepted by others as a member of a race, sex, or other group to which one does not belong or would not have originally appeared to belong; especially to be considered white although one has black ancestry, or a woman although one was assigned male at birth or vice versa.
Usage- Intransitive
- stative
- Examples
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Chinese sometimes pass for Europeans, but Japs more often approach Western types.
[…] a situation where I had to know whether I could pass as a woman, and not tell anyone, and not be asked what I was doing dressed as a woman.
More examples (1)
Like Olivia's aunts (described above), many Americans passed as white to resist the racially restrictive one-drop rule and the racial status quo of the Jim Crow era (Daniel 2002; Williamson 1980).
To refrain from doing something. To decline something that is offered or available.
Usage- Intransitive
- Examples
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He asked me to go to the cinema with him, but I think I'll pass.
To refrain from doing something. To reject; to pass up.
Usage- Transitive
- Examples
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Instead, the board voted to suspend the dividend, giving Orton his way at last. They passed the dividend again in June 1870 […]
To refrain from doing something. To decline or not attempt to answer a question.
Usage- Intransitive
- Examples
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I haven't any idea of the answer, so I'll have to pass.
To refrain from doing something. In turn-based games, to decline to play in one's turn.
Usage- Intransitive
To refrain from doing something. In euchre, to decline to make the trump.
Usage- Intransitive
To do or be better. To go beyond bounds; to surpass; to be in excess.
Usage- Intransitive
- Obsolete
- Examples
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This passes, Master Ford.
To do or be better. To transcend; to surpass; to excel; to exceed.
Usage- Transitive
- Examples
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And striue to passe[…]Their natiue musicke by her skilfull art:
Whose tender power Passes the strength of storms in their most desolate hour.
To take heed, to have an interest, to care.
Usage- Intransitive
- Obsolete
- Synonyms
- Examples
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Mena[phon]. How now my Lord, what mated and amazd’ To heare the king thus threaten like himſelfe? Coſ[roe]. Ah Menaphon, I paſſe not for his threates, […]
As for these silken-coated slaves, I pass not.
Noun
An opening, road, or track, available for passing; especially, one through or over some dangerous or otherwise impracticable barrier such as a mountain range; a passageway; a defile; a ford.
- Examples
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mountain pass
More examples (2)
"Try not the Pass!" the old man said; / "Dark lowers the tempest overhead, / The roaring torrent is deep and wide!" / And loud that clarion voice replied / Excelsior!
Followed two more weeks of marching,—rougher marching this time,—through the core of the lofty mountains that divide India from Central Asia; across the terrible Depsang Plains, seventeen thousand feet up; and over four passes choked with snow; till they came upon a deserted fort, set in the midst of stark space, and knew that here, indeed, was the limit of human habitation. Next day the work of exploration had begun in earnest.
A channel connecting a river or body of water to the sea, for example at the mouth (delta) of a river.
- Examples
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the passes of the Mississippi
A single movement, especially of a hand, at, over, or along anything.
- Examples
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[The bear] made a pass at the dog, but he swung out and above him […]
A single passage of a tool over something, or of something over a tool.
- Synonyms
An attempt.
- Examples
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My first pass at a career of writing proved unsuccessful.
An attempt. A sexual advance (often in the phrase make a pass).
- Synonyms
- Examples
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The man kicked his friend out of the house after he made a pass at his wife.
Success in an examination or similar test.
- Examples
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I gained three passes at A-level, in mathematics, French, and English literature.
A thrust or push; an attempt to stab or strike an adversary.
- Synonyms
A thrust; a sally of wit.
Usage- Figurative
The act of moving the ball or puck from one player to another.
- Examples
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Everyone in the football stadium expected a pass play on third down.
A passing of two trains in the same direction on a single track, when one is put into a siding to let the other overtake it.
- Antonyms
Permission or license to pass, or to go and come.
- Examples
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A ship sailing under the flag and pass of an enemy.
A document granting permission to pass or to go and come; a passport; a ticket permitting free transit or admission
- Examples
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a railroad pass; a theater pass; a military pass
An intentional walk.
- Examples
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Smith was given a pass after Jones' double.
The act of overtaking; an overtaking manoeuvre.
- Examples
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More examples (1)
Albon made hard work of the result. Starting fourth, he dropped back to seventh at the second start and had to fight his way back up, which he did with some excellent passes.
The state of things; condition; predicament; impasse.
- Synonyms
- Examples
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England is growne to ſuch a paſſe of late, That rich men triumph to ſee the poore beg at their gate.
What, have his daughters brought him to this pass?
More examples (2)
Matters have been brought to this pass, that, if one among a man's sons had any blemish, he laid him aside for the ministry...
"What with Robert strolling out with publicans' daughters, and you having affairs with bicycle-shop keepers, the family is coming to a pretty pass."
Estimation; character.
Usage- Obsolete
- Examples
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This passes, Master Ford.
The area in a restaurant kitchen where the finished dishes are passed from the chefs to the waiting staff.
- Examples
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The finished dishes are placed on the pass ready to be collected by the waiter.
An act of declining to play one's turn in a game, often by saying the word "pass".
- Examples
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A pass would have seen her win the game, but instead she gave a wrong answer and lost a point, putting her in second place.
A run through a document as part of a translation, compilation or reformatting process.
- Examples
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Most Pascal compilers process source code in a single pass.
Noun
A password (especially one for a restricted-access website).
Usage- Slang
- Examples
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Anyone want to trade passes?
More examples (1)
If you don't have your password set within a week I'll remove you from the userlist and I'll add you again next time I see you in the chan and make sure you set a pass.
Adjective
of advancing the ball by throwing it
- Synonyms
- Examples
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a team with a good passing attack
a pass play
Noun
(baseball) an advance to first base by a batter who receives four balls
- Synonyms
- Broader terms
- Examples
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he worked the pitcher for a base on balls
(military) a written leave of absence
- Broader terms
- Examples
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he had a pass for three days
(American football) a play that involves one player throwing the ball to a teammate
- Synonyms
- Broader terms
- Examples
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the coach sent in a passing play on third and long
the location in a range of mountains of a geological formation that is lower than the surrounding peaks
- Synonyms
- Broader terms
- Examples
-
we got through the pass before it started to snow
any authorization to pass or go somewhere
- Synonyms
- Broader terms
- Examples
-
the pass to visit had a strict time limit
a document indicating permission to do something without restrictions
- Synonyms
- Broader terms
- Examples
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the media representatives had special passes
a flight or run by an aircraft over a target
- Examples
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the plane turned to make a second pass
a bad or difficult situation or state of affairs
- Broader terms
a difficult juncture
- Examples
-
a pretty pass
matters came to a head yesterday
one complete cycle of operations (as by a computer)
- Broader terms
- Examples
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it was not possible to complete the computation in a single pass
an automatic advance to the next round in a tournament without playing an opponent
- Synonyms
- Broader terms
- Examples
-
he had a bye in the first round
a permit to enter or leave a military installation
- Synonyms
- Examples
-
he had to show his pass in order to get out
a complimentary ticket
- Broader terms
- Examples
-
the star got passes for his family
a usually brief attempt
- Examples
-
he took a crack at it
I gave it a whirl
(sports) the act of throwing the ball to another member of your team
- Broader terms
- Examples
-
the pass was fumbled
success in satisfying a test or requirement
- Synonyms
- Broader terms
- Examples
-
his future depended on his passing that test
he got a pass in introductory chemistry
Verb
go across or through
- Examples
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We passed the point where the police car had parked
A terrible thought went through his mind
move past
- Examples
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A black limousine passed by when she looked out the window
He passed his professor in the hall
More examples (1)
One line of soldiers surpassed the other
make laws, bills, etc. or bring into effect by legislation
- Synonyms
- Examples
-
They passed the amendment
We cannot legislate how people spend their free time
for time to move forward
- Examples
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three years elapsed
place into the hands or custody of
- Broader terms
- Examples
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hand me the spoon, please
Turn the files over to me, please
More examples (1)
He turned over the prisoner to his lawyers
stretch out over a distance, space, time, or scope; run or extend between two points or beyond a certain point
- Broader terms
- Examples
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Service runs all the way to Cranbury
His knowledge doesn't go very far
More examples (2)
My memory extends back to my fourth year of life
The facts extend beyond a consideration of her personal assets
travel past
- Examples
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The sports car passed all the trucks
come to pass
- Examples
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What is happening?
The meeting took place without an incident
More examples (1)
Nothing occurred that seemed important
go unchallenged; be approved
- Synonyms
- Examples
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The bill cleared the House
use up a period of time in a specific way
- Synonyms
- Examples
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how are you spending your summer vacation?
pass over, across, or through
- Examples
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He ran his eyes over her body
She ran her fingers along the carved figurine
More examples (1)
He drew her hair through his fingers
transmit information
- Broader terms
- Examples
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Please communicate this message to all employees
pass along the good news
disappear gradually
- Examples
-
The pain eventually passed off
go successfully through a test or a selection process
- Synonyms
- Antonyms
- Examples
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She passed the new Jersey Bar Exam and can practice law now
be superior or better than some standard
- Examples
-
She exceeded our expectations
She topped her performance of last year
accept or judge as acceptable
- Antonyms
- Broader terms
- Examples
-
The teacher passed the student although he was weak
allow to go without comment or censure
- Examples
-
the insult passed as if unnoticed
transfer to another; of rights or property
- Broader terms
- Examples
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Our house passed under his official control
pass into a specified state or condition; sink into
- Broader terms
- Examples
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He sank into nirvana
throw (a ball) to another player
- Examples
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Smith passed
be inherited by
- Broader terms
- Examples
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The estate fell to my sister
The land returned to the family
More examples (1)
The estate devolved to an heir that everybody had assumed to be dead
cause to pass
- Synonyms
- Examples
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She passed around the plates
grant authorization or clearance for
- Broader terms
- Examples
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Clear the manuscript for publication
The rock star never authorized this slanderous biography
pass from physical life and lose all bodily attributes and functions necessary to sustain life
- Synonyms
- Broader terms
- Examples
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She died from cancer
The children perished in the fire
More examples (2)
The patient went peacefully
The old guy kicked the bucket at the age of 102
eliminate from the body
- Examples
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Pass a kidney stone