passenger

From Old French passagier.

• (General American) IPA^(key): /ˈpæsɪnd͡ʒɚ/, /ˈpæsənd͡ʒɚ/
• (Received Pronunciation) IPA^(key): /ˈpæsɪnd͡ʒə/, /ˈpæsənd͡ʒə/
• Hyphenation: pas‧sen‧ger

• Audio (US):

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passenger (plural passengers)

1. One who rides or travels in a vehicle, but who does not operate it and is not a member of the crew.
   • 1915, G[eorge] A. Birmingham [pseudonym; James Owen Hannay], chapter I, in Gossamer, New York, N.Y.: George H. Doran Company, →OCLC:

     It is never possible to settle down to the ordinary routine of life at sea until the screw begins to revolve. There is an hour or two, after the passengers have embarked, which is disquieting and fussy.

   • 2013 June 1, “Ideas coming down the track”, in The Economist, volume 407, number 8838, page 13 (Technology Quarterly):

     A “moving platform” scheme […] is more technologically ambitious than maglev trains even though it relies on conventional rails. Local trains would use side-by-side rails to roll alongside intercity trains and allow passengers to switch trains by stepping through docking bays.

2. (informal, chiefly UK) Somebody in a team who does not do their fair share of the work.
3. (falconry) A young hunting bird that can fly and is taken while it is still in its first year.
4. (obsolete) A migratory bird, a bird of passage.
   • c. 1587–1588, [Christopher Marlowe], Tamburlaine the Great. […] The First Part […], 2nd edition, part 1, London: […] [R. Robinson for] Richard Iones, […], published 1592, →OCLC; reprinted as Tamburlaine the Great (A Scolar Press Facsimile), Menston, Yorkshire, London: Scolar Press, 1973, →ISBN, Act I, scene i:

     Meander, thou my faithfull Counſellor,
     Declare the cauſe of my conceiued griefe,
     Which is (God knowes) about that Tamburlaine:
     That like a Foxe in midſt of harueſt time,
     Dooth pray vppon my flockes of Passengers: […]

5. (obsolete) A passer-by; a wayfarer.
   • c. 1590–1591 (date written), William Shakespeare, “The Two Gentlemen of Verona”, in Mr. William Shakespeares Comedies, Histories, & Tragedies […] (First Folio), London: […] Isaac Iaggard, and Ed[ward] Blount, published 1623, →OCLC, [Act V, scene iv], line 15:

     These are my mates, that make their wills their law, / Have some unhappy passenger in chase.

   • Quoted in 1905, William Carew Hazlitt, Faiths and Folklore (volume 2, page 595)

     [The boys] have taken possession of the turnpike road to play the before-mentioned games, to the serious inconvenience of the passengers, one of whom, a woman, was yesterday knocked down by a nurr which struck her in the head.

6. (obsolete) A ship carrying passengers, a ferryboat.
7. A moth, Dysgonia algira
8. (military) Any of the individual warheads of a MIRV missile.

• (person borne by a vehicle): inmate (uncommon)

passenger (third-person singular simple present passengers, present participle passengering, simple past and past participle passengered)

1. (intransitive) To ride as a passenger in a vehicle.

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