Pass-key noun A key for opening more locks than one; a master key.

Pass-parole noun [ French passe- parole .] (Mil.) An order passed from front to rear by word of mouth.

Passing noun The act of one who, or that which, passes; the act of going by or away.

Passing bell , a tolling of a bell to announce that a soul is passing, or has passed, from its body (formerly done to invoke prayers for the dying); also, a tolling during the passing of a funeral procession to the grave, or during funeral ceremonies. Sir W. Scott. Longfellow.

Passing adjective
1. Relating to the act of passing or going; going by, beyond, through, or away; departing.

2. Exceeding; surpassing, eminent. Chaucer. "Her passing deformity." Shak.

Passing note (Mus.) , a character including a passing tone. -- Passing tone (Mus.) , a tone introduced between two other tones, on an unaccented portion of a measure, for the sake of smoother melody, but forming no essential part of the harmony.

Passing adverb Exceedingly; excessively; surpassingly; as, passing fair; passing strange. "You apprehend passing shrewdly." Shak.

Passingly adverb Exceedingly. Wyclif.

Passion noun [ French, from Latin passio , from pati , passus , to suffer. See Patient .]
1. A suffering or enduring of imposed or inflicted pain; any suffering or distress (as, a cardiac passion ); specifically, the suffering of Christ between the time of the last supper and his death, esp. in the garden upon the cross. "The passions of this time." Wyclif (Rom. viii. 18).

To whom also he showed himself alive after his passion , by many infallible proofs.

Acts i. 3.

2. The state of being acted upon; subjection to an external agent or influence; a passive condition; -- opposed to action .

A body at rest affords us no idea of any active power to move, and, when set is motion, it is rather a passion than an action in it.

Locke.

3. Capacity of being affected by external agents; susceptibility of impressions from external agents. [ R.]

Moldable and not moldable, scissible and not scissible, and many other passions of matter.

Bacon.

4. The state of the mind when it is powerfully acted upon and influenced by something external to itself; the state of any particular faculty which, under such conditions, becomes extremely sensitive or uncontrollably excited; any emotion or sentiment (specifically, love or anger) in a state of abnormal or controlling activity; an extreme or inordinate desire; also, the capacity or susceptibility of being so affected; as, to be in a passion ; the passions of love, hate, jealously, wrath, ambition, avarice, fear, etc.; a passion for war, or for drink; an orator should have passion as well as rhetorical skill. "A passion fond even to idolatry." Macaulay. "Her passion is to seek roses." Lady M. W. Montagu.

We also are men of like passions with you.

Acts xiv. 15.

The nature of the human mind can not be sufficiently understood, without considering the affections and passions , or those modifications or actions of the mind consequent upon the apprehension of certain objects or events in which the mind generally conceives good or evil.

Hutcheson.

The term passion , and its adverb passionately , often express a very strong predilection for any pursuit, or object of taste -- a kind of enthusiastic fondness for anything.

Cogan.

The bravery of his grief did put me
Into a towering passion .

Shak.

The ruling passion , be it what it will,
The ruling passion conquers reason still.

Pope.

Who walked in every path of human life,
Felt every passion .

Akenside.

When statesmen are ruled by faction and interest, they can have no passion for the glory of their country.

Addison.

5. Disorder of the mind; madness. [ Obsolete] Shak.

6. Passion week. See Passion week , below. R. of Gl.

Passion flower (Botany) , any flower or plant of the genus Passiflora ; -- so named from a fancied resemblance of parts of the flower to the instruments of our Savior's crucifixion.

» The flowers are showy, and the fruit is sometimes highly esteemed (see Granadilla , and Maypop ). The roots and leaves are generally more or less noxious, and are used in medicine. The plants are mostly tendril climbers, and are commonest in the warmer parts of America, though a few species are Asiatic or Australian.

Passion music (Mus.) , originally, music set to the gospel narrative of the passion of our Lord; after the Reformation, a kind of oratorio, with narrative, chorals, airs, and choruses, having for its theme the passion and crucifixion of Christ. -- Passion play , a mystery play, in which the scenes connected with the passion of our Savior are represented dramatically. -- Passion Sunday (Eccl.) , the fifth Sunday in Lent, or the second before Easter. -- Passion Week , the last week but one in Lent, or the second week preceding Easter. "The name of Passion week is frequently, but improperly, applied to Holy Week." Shipley.

Syn. -- Passion , Feeling , Emotion . When any feeling or emotion completely masters the mind, we call it a passion ; as, a passion for music, dress, etc.; especially is anger (when thus extreme) called passion . The mind, in such cases, is considered as having lost its self- control, and become the passive instrument of the feeling in question.

Passion transitive verb [ imperfect & past participle Passioned ; p. pr & verbal noun Passioning .] To give a passionate character to. [ R.] Keats.

Passion intransitive verb To suffer pain or sorrow; to experience a passion; to be extremely agitated. [ Obsolete] "Dumbly she passions , frantically she doteth." Shak.

Passional adjective Of or pertaining to passion or the passions; exciting, influenced by, or ministering to, the passions. -- noun A passionary.

Passionary noun [ Latin passionarius : confer French passionaire .] A book in which are described the sufferings of saints and martyrs. T. Warton.

Passionate adjective [ Late Latin passionatus : confer French passionné .]
1. Capable or susceptible of passion, or of different passions; easily moved, excited or agitated; specifically, easily moved to anger; irascible; quick-tempered; as, a passionate nature.

Homer's Achilles is haughty and passionate .

Prior.

2. Characterized by passion; expressing passion; ardent in feeling or desire; vehement; warm; as, a passionate friendship. "The passionate Pilgrim." Shak.

3. Suffering; sorrowful. [ Obsolete] Shak.

Passionate intransitive verb
1. To affect with passion; to impassion. [ Obsolete]

Great pleasure, mixed with pitiful regard,
The godly kind and queen did passionate .

Spenser.

2. To express feelingly or sorrowfully. [ Obsolete] Shak.

Passionately adverb
1. In a passionate manner; with strong feeling; ardently.

Sorrow expresses itself . . . loudly and passionately .

South.

2. Angrily; irascibly. Locke.

Passionateness noun The state or quality of being passionate.

Passionist noun (R. C. Ch.) A member of a religious order founded in Italy in 1737, and introduced into the United States in 1852. The members of the order unite the austerities of the Trappists with the activity and zeal of the Jesuits and Lazarists. Called also Barefooted Clerks of the Most Holy Cross .

Passionless adjective Void of passion; without anger or emotion; not easily excited; calm. "Self-contained and passionless ." Tennyson.

Passiontide noun [ Passion + tide time.] The last fortnight of Lent.

Passive adjective [ Latin passivus : confer French passif . See Passion .]
1. Not active, but acted upon; suffering or receiving impressions or influences; as, they were passive spectators, not actors in the scene.

The passive air
Upbore their nimble tread.

Milton.

The mind is wholly passive in the reception of all its simple ideas.

Locke.

2. Receiving or enduring without either active sympathy or active resistance; without emotion or excitement; patient; not opposing; unresisting; as, passive obedience; passive submission.

The best virtue, passive fortitude.

Massinger.

3. (Chemistry) Inactive; inert; not showing strong affinity; as, red phosphorus is comparatively passive .

4. (Medicine) Designating certain morbid conditions, as hemorrhage or dropsy, characterized by relaxation of the vessels and tissues, with deficient vitality and lack of reaction in the affected tissues.

Passive congestion (Medicine) , congestion due to obstruction to the return of the blood from the affected part. -- Passive iron (Chemistry) , iron which has been subjected to the action of heat, of strong nitric acid, chlorine, etc. It is then not easily acted upon by acids. -- Passive movement (Medicine) , a movement of a part, in order to exercise it, made without the assistance of the muscles which ordinarily move the part. -- Passive obedience (as used by writers on government), obedience or submission of the subject or citizen as a duty in all cases to the existing government. -- Passive prayer , among mystic divines, a suspension of the activity of the soul or intellectual faculties, the soul remaining quiet, and yielding only to the impulses of grace. -- Passive verb , or Passive voice (Gram.) , a verb, or form of a verb, which expresses the effect of the action of some agent; as, in Latin, doceor , I am taught; in English, she is loved ; the picture is admired by all; he is assailed by slander.

Syn. -- Inactive; inert; quiescent; unresisting; unopposing; suffering; enduring; submissive; patient.

Passive balloon, aëroplane One unprovided with motive power.

Passive flight Flight, such as gliding and soaring, accomplished without the use of motive power.

Passively adverb
1. In a passive manner; inertly; unresistingly.

2. As a passive verb; in the passive voice.

Passiveness noun The quality or state of being passive; unresisting submission.

To be an effect implies passiveness , or the being subject to the power and action of its cause.

J. Edwards.

Passivity noun [ Confer French passivité .]
1. Passiveness; -- opposed to activity . Jer. Taylor.

2. (Physics) The tendency of a body to remain in a given state, either of motion or rest, till disturbed by another body; inertia. Cheyne.

3. (Chemistry) The quality or condition of any substance which has no inclination to chemical activity; inactivity.

Passless adjective Having no pass; impassable. Cowley.

Passman noun ; plural Passmen One who passes for a degree, without honors. See Classman , 2. [ Eng. Univ.]

Passover noun [ Pass + over . See Pasch.] (Jewish Antiq.) (a) A feast of the Jews, instituted to commemorate the sparing of the Hebrews in Egypt, when God, smiting the firstborn of the Egyptians, passed over the houses of the Israelites which were marked with the blood of a lamb. (b) The sacrifice offered at the feast of the passover; the paschal lamb. Ex. xii.

Passport noun [ French passeport , orig., a permission to leave a port or to sail into it; passer to pass + port a port, harbor. See Pass , and Port a harbor.]
1. Permission to pass; a document given by the competent officer of a state, permitting the person therein named to pass or travel from place to place, without molestation, by land or by water.

Caution in granting passports to Ireland.

Clarendon.

2. A document carried by neutral merchant vessels in time of war, to certify their nationality and protect them from belligerents; a sea letter.

3. A license granted in time of war for the removal of persons and effects from a hostile country; a safe- conduct. Burrill.

4. Figuratively: Anything which secures advancement and general acceptance. Sir P. Sidney.

His passport is his innocence and grace.

Dryden.

Passus noun ; plural Latin Passus , English Passuses [ Latin , a step, a pace. See Pace .] A division or part; a canto; as, the passus of Piers Plowman. See 2d Fit .

Password noun A word to be given before a person is allowed to pass; a watchword; a countersign. Macaulay.

Passymeasure noun [ Corrupted from Italian passamezzo .] [ Obsolete] See Paspy . Shak.

Past adjective [ From Pass , v. ] Of or pertaining to a former time or state; neither present nor future; gone by; elapsed; ended; spent; as, past troubles; past offences. " Past ages." Milton.

Past master . See under Master .

Past noun A former time or state; a state of things gone by. "The past , at least, is secure." D. Webster.

The present is only intelligible in the light of the past , often a very remote past indeed.

Trench.

Past preposition
1. Beyond, in position, or degree; further than; beyond the reach or influence of. "Who being past feeling." Eph. iv. 19. "Galled past endurance." Macaulay.

Until we be past thy borders.

Num. xxi. 22.

Love, when once past government, is consequently past shame .

L'Estrange.

2. Beyond, in time; after; as, past the hour.

Is it not past two o'clock?

Shak.

3. Above; exceeding; more than. [ R.]

Not past three quarters of a mile.

Shak.

Bows not past three quarters of a yard long.

Spenser.

Past adverb By; beyond; as, he ran past .

The alarum of drums swept past .

Longfellow.

Paste noun [ Old French paste , French pâte , Latin pasta , from Greek ... barley broth; confer ... barley porridge, ... sprinkled with salt, ... to sprinkle. Confer Pasty , noun , Patty .]
1. A soft composition, as of flour moistened with water or milk, or of earth moistened to the consistence of dough, as in making potter's ware.

2. Specifically, in cookery, a dough prepared for the crust of pies and the like; pastry dough.

3. A kind of cement made of flour and water, starch and water, or the like, -- used for uniting paper or other substances, as in bookbinding, etc., -- also used in calico printing as a vehicle for mordant or color.

4. A highly refractive vitreous composition, variously colored, used in making imitations of precious stones or gems. See Strass .

5. A soft confection made of the inspissated juice of fruit, licorice, or the like, with sugar, etc.

6. (Min.) The mineral substance in which other minerals are imbedded.

Paste eel (Zoology) , the vinegar eel. See under Vinegar .

Paste transitive verb [ imperfect & past participle Pasted ; present participle & verbal noun Pasting .] To unite with paste; to fasten or join by means of paste.

Pasteboard noun
1. A stiff thick kind of paper board, formed of several single sheets pasted one upon another, or of paper macerated and pressed into molds, etc.

2. (Cookery) A board on which pastry dough is rolled; a molding board.

Pastel noun [ F.; confer Italian pastello . Confer Pastil .]
1. A crayon made of a paste composed of a color ground with gum water. [ Sometimes incorrectly written pastil .] "Charming heads in pastel ." W. Black.

2. (Botany) A plant affording a blue dye; the woad ( Isatis tinctoria ); also, the dye itself.

Paster noun
1. One who pastes; as, a paster in a government department.

2. A slip of paper, usually bearing a name, intended to be pasted by the voter, as a substitute, over another name on a printed ballot. [ Cant, U.S.]

Pastern noun [ Of. pasturon , French pâturon , from Old French pasture a tether, for beasts while pasturing; prop., a pasturing. See Pasture .]
1. The part of the foot of the horse, and allied animals, between the fetlock and the coffin joint. See Illust. of Horse .

» The upper bone, or phalanx, of the foot is called the great pastern bone ; the second, the small pastern bone ; and the third, in the hoof, the coffin bone .

Pastern joint , the joint in the hoof of the horse, and allied animals, between the great and small pastern bones.

2. A shackle for horses while pasturing. Knight.

3. A patten. [ Obsolete] Dryden.

Pasteur's fluid (Biol.) An artificial nutrient fluid invented by Pasteur for the study of alcoholic fermentation, but used also for the cultivation of bacteria and other organisms. It contains all the elements of protoplasm, and was originally made of the ash of yeast, some ammonia compound, sugar, and water.

Pasteurian adjective Of or pertaining to Pasteur.

Pasteurism noun [ Fr. Pasteur , a French scientist.]
1. A method of treatment, devised by Pasteur, for preventing certain diseases, as hydrophobia, by successive inoculations with an attenuated virus of gradually increasing strength.

2. Pasteurization.

Pasteurization noun A process devised by Pasteur for preventing or checking fermentation in fluids, such as wines, milk, etc., by exposure to a temperature of 140° F., thus destroying the vitality of the contained germs or ferments.

Pasteurize transitive verb
1. To subject to pasteurization.

2. To treat by pasteurism.

Pasteurizer noun One that Pasteurizes, specif. an apparatus for heating and agitating, fluid.

Pasticcio noun [ Italian , from pasta . See Paste .]
1. A medley; an olio. [ R.] H. Swinburne.

2. (Fine Arts) (a) A work of art imitating directly the work of another artist, or of more artists than one. (b) A falsified work of art, as a vase or statue made up of parts of original works, with missing parts supplied.

Pastil, Pastille noun [ French pastille , Latin pastillus a pastus food. See Pasture , and confer Pastel .]
1. (Pharmacy) A small cone or mass made of paste of gum, benzoin, cinnamon, and other aromatics, -- used for fumigating or scenting the air of a room.

2. An aromatic or medicated lozenge; a troche.

3. See Pastel , a crayon.