Word.ws English Dictionary

pass the hat

pass the hat verb: to ask for money, especially from a group of people; to solicit donations or contributions.

Verb

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

  1. (idiomatic) To ask for money, especially from a group of people; to solicit donations or contributions.
    • Then somebody sings out, "Take up a collection for him, take up a collection!" Well, a half a dozen made a jump to do it, but somebody sings out, "Let HIM pass the hat around!"1885, Mark Twain, chapter 20, in Huckleberry Finn
    • A consensus developed that those individuals who believed in this type of activism would pursue it independently, while enlisting help from interested members. When financial contributions were called for, we would "pass the hat" rather than tap our meager treasury.1988 February 14, Richard Tremblay, “A Boat With A Sail”, in Gay Community News, volume 15, number 30, page 5

Synonyms of pass the hat

Forms of pass the hat

third-person singular presentpasses the hat
present participlepassing the hat
past participlepassed the hat
pastpassed the hat

Origin of pass the hat

From the practice of placing money in a hat circulated to collect funds from a small group. The figurative usage is extended from the literal usage.

Questions about pass the hat

What does pass the hat mean?
Pass the hat means to ask for money, especially from a group of people; to solicit donations or contributions.
What part of speech is pass the hat?
Pass the hat is a verb.
What is the past tense of pass the hat?
The past tense of pass the hat is passed the hat.

Words near pass the hat in the dictionary

  1. pass the bar
  2. pass the baton
  3. pass the book
  4. pass the bottle of smoke
  5. pass the buck
  6. pass the hat
  7. pass the mantle
  8. pass the parcel
  9. pass the phone
  10. pass the pikes
  11. pass the river

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: pass the hat (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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Pronunciation audio from Wikimedia Commons, each file under its own free license: En-au-pass the hat.ogg.

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