Word.ws English Dictionary

pass down

pass down verb: to hand over, pass through or transfer to a lower level, next generation, etc.

Verb

pass down (third-person singular simple present passes down, present participle passing down, simple past and past participle passed down)

  1. (transitive) To hand over, pass through or transfer to a lower level, next generation, etc.
    • In poor families, solid clothes are passed down from elder children to kid siblings, who must wear them out or if they outgrow them pass them down to still younger relatives.
    • "Our language is unwritten and our history and our deeds are passed down from father to son," Wazir Ghulam Mahdi told me.1987 October, Galen Rowell, “Baltistan: The 20th Century Comes to Shangri-la”, in National Geographic, volume 172, number 4, page 526
  2. Used other than figuratively or idiomatically: see pass, down.

Forms of pass down

third-person singular presentpasses down
present participlepassing down
past participlepassed down
pastpassed down

Words formed from pass down

Questions about pass down

What does pass down mean?
Pass down means to hand over, pass through or transfer to a lower level, next generation, etc.
What part of speech is pass down?
Pass down is a verb.
What is the past tense of pass down?
The past tense of pass down is passed down.

Words near pass down in the dictionary

  1. pass by value
  2. pass check
  3. pass checks
  4. pass current
  5. pass degree
  6. pass down
  7. pass for
  8. pass gas
  9. pass grip
  10. pass grips
  11. pass in one's checks

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: pass down (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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