Word.ws English Dictionary

pass-fail

pass-fail adjective: describing a form of examination, etc. in which the student either passes or fails, without receiving a specific mark or grade.

Adjective

pass-fail (not comparable)

  1. Describing a form of examination, etc. in which the student either passes or fails, without receiving a specific mark or grade.
    • Many may argue that pass-fail is the “easy way out.” However, a pass-fail weeder class may be more helpful than a traditional weeder class. Pass-fail gives students flexibility and time to learn content and material at their own pace.2024 September 16, Opinion Department, “TIAS | It’s Time to Weed Out Weeder Courses”, in The Cornell Daily Sun, archived from the original on 10 Jun 2025

Forms of pass-fail

alternative formpass/fail

Questions about pass-fail

What does pass-fail mean?
Pass-fail means describing a form of examination, etc. in which the student either passes or fails, without receiving a specific mark or grade.
What part of speech is pass-fail?
Pass-fail is an adjective.

Words near pass-fail in the dictionary

  1. pass-by-name
  2. pass-by-need
  3. pass-by-reference
  4. pass-by-value
  5. pass-dice
  6. pass-fail
  7. pass-out
  8. pass-outs
  9. pass-parole
  10. pass-paroles
  11. pass-remarkable

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: pass-fail (page history and authors). Text available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 license. Word.ws reformatted the entry and added links. Wiktionary data of 2026-09-02.

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Cite this entry: “pass-fail.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/pass-fail. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.