Word.ws English Dictionary

passing

/ˈpɑːsɪŋ/

passing is the present participle and gerund of pass.

Adjective

passing (comparative more passing, superlative most passing)

  1. That passes away; ephemeral.
    • And solace sought he none from priest nor leech, / And soon the same in movement and in speech / As heretofore he fill'd the passing hours […]1814, Lord Byron, Lara, I.15
    • […]this is just a passing thing
      But I believe in your sweet loving, loving, babe
      With every summer falling rain1968 December 8, Henry Cosby, Sylvia Moy, Stevie Wonder, “I’d Be a Fool Right Now”, in For Once in My Life, performed by Stevie Wonder, Tamla Records
  2. (archaic, literary) Pre-eminent, excellent, extreme.
    • her passing deformityc. 1590–1591 (date written), William Shakespeare, “The Two Gentlemen of Verona”, in Mr. William Shakespeares Comedies, Histories, & Tragedies […] (First Folio), London: […] Isaac Iaggard, and...
    • It was by dint of passing strength, / That he moved the massy stone at length.1835, Washington Irving, The Crayon Miscellany
  3. Vague, cursory.
    • to make a passing comment
    • to have a passing acquaintance with somebody or something
  4. Going past.
    • passing cars
  5. That passes in any sense.
    • a passing transsexual

Noun

passing (countable and uncountable, plural passings)

  1. Death, dying; the end of something.
  2. The fact of going past; a movement from one place to another or a change from one state to another.
    • And since he did not see Louie by the folding door, Louie knew that in his former passings and repassings he could not have seen her either.1913, Oliver Onions, The Story of Louie
  3. The act of approving a bill etc.
    • But capital was proving difficult to raise; rumours were in the air that the G.W.R. and L.S.W.R. were about to patch up their quarrel, and the people of Southampton, who twelve months earlier had staged a torch-light procession to celebrate the passing of the D.N.S.R. Act, were increasingly loath...1955 February, T. B. Sands, “The Didcot, Newbury & Southampton Railway—1”, in Railway Magazine, page 79
  4. The act of passing a ball etc. to another player.
  5. A form of juggling where several people pass props between each other, usually clubs or rings.
  6. The ability of a person to be regarded as a member of an identity group or category different from their own.
    • When there is a discrepancy between an individual's actual social identity and his virtual one, it is possible for this fact to be known to us before we normals contact him, or to be quite evident when he presents himself before us. He is a discredited person, and it is mainly he I have been...1963, Erving Goffman, 'Notes on the Management of Spoiled Identity', Ch.2 at p.57, 58 (page numbers per the Pelican Books 1976 reprint)

Meaning of pass

Verb

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

  1. (intransitive) To move or be moved from one place to another.
    • They passed from room to room.
    Synonyms:
    go, move
  2. (transitive) To go past, by, over, or through; to proceed from one side to the other of; to move past.
    • You will pass a house on your right.
  3. (ditransitive) To cause to move or go; to send; to transfer from one person, place, or condition to another.
    • The waiter passed biscuits and cheese.
  4. (intransitive, transitive) To eliminate (something) from the body by natural processes.
    • He was passing blood in both his urine and his stool.
    Synonyms:
    evacuate, void
  5. (transitive) To take a turn with (a line, gasket, etc.), as around a sail in furling, and make secure.
  6. (transitive) To kick (the ball) with precision rather than at full force.
    • 20 June 2010, The Guardian, Rob Smyth
      Iaquinta passes it coolly into the right-hand corner as Paston dives the other way.

See all 63 meanings of pass

Adverb

passing (not comparable)

  1. (archaic, literary) Surpassingly, greatly.
    • [...] for she was called a fair lady, and a passing wise, and her name was called Igraine.1485 July, Sir Thomas Malory, chapter I, in William Caxton, editor, Le Morte D’Arthur, volume 1
    • How wonderful is Death, / Death and his brother Sleep! / One, pale as yonder waning moon / With lips of lurid blue; / The other, rosy as the morn / When throned on ocean's wave / It blushes o'er the world: / Yet both so passing wonderful!1813, Percy Bysshe Shelley, “Canto I”, in Queen Mab; […], London: […] P. B. Shelley, […], →OCLC, page 3

Synonyms of passing

26 more synonymsFewer synonyms

Forms of passing

Adjective
comparativemore passing
superlativemost passing
Noun
pluralpassings

Origin of passing

From pass + -ing.

Words formed from passing

Phrases with passing

48 more phrasesFewer phrases

Questions about passing

What does passing mean?
Passing means that passes away; ephemeral.
What is passing the present participle and gerund of?
Passing is the present participle and gerund of pass.
What part of speech is passing?
Passing can be an adjective, an adverb or a noun.
How do you pronounce passing?
Passing is pronounced /ˈpɑːsɪŋ/ (UK).

Words near passing in the dictionary

  1. passify
  2. passifying
  3. passim
  4. passimeter
  5. passimeters
  6. passing
  7. passing a good time
  8. passing a sponge over the slate
  9. passing a stool
  10. passing along
  11. passing around

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: passing (page history and authors); pass (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-uk-passing.ogg, en-us-passing.ogg, en-au-passing.ogg.

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