passenger

Pronunciation

• IPA: UK /ˈpæs.ən.dʒə/, /ˈpæs.ɪn.dʒə/, US /ˈpæs.ən.dʒɚ/^[1]

Etymology

It is Middle English passager, borrowed from Old French passageor, passager (“traveller, passer-by”),^[2][3][4] a noun use of the adjective passager “passing, fleeting, travelling”, from passage “passage”,^[2][3][5] from passer “to go by”, from Vulgar Latin *passāre, from Latin passus “step, pace”.^[2] See passage.^[3][4] An n was added before the -ger in late Middle English, giving passynger about 1421, as in messenger, harbinger and scavenger.^[3][6]

Earliest recorded meaning

A ferry for passengers, passajour, in 1337, and a traveller before 1338, in Mannyng's Chronicle.^[3][7] Etymonline has the mid-14th century for “a passer-by, a traveller”.^[2]

Semantic evolution

A traveller on foot, a wayfarer, is from about 1330 and now unusual except in foot-passenger.^[7][6] A person carried in a vessel or vehicle is first recorded in Guylford's Pilgrimage (1511).^[3][7] In the 16th century a passenger could also be a bird of passage or a hawk caught on migration.^[7] A member of a team who does little of the work is a later figurative sense, chiefly British.^[8][9]

Timeline

• 1337 – a passenger ferry.^[3]
• c. 1338 – a traveller.^[3]
• c. 1421 – the form passynger.^[3]
• 1511 – a traveller in a vehicle or ship.^[3][7]

Modern meaning

Noun

1. A person travelling in a car, bus, train, ship or aircraft who is not driving or working on it.
2. (chiefly British) A member of a group or team who does not do a fair share of the work.

Word family

• nonpassenger
• passenger mile
• passenger pigeon

Related words

• pass
• passage
• messenger

References

1. ^ Jones, Daniel (2011), Cambridge English Pronouncing Dictionary, 18th ed., ed. Peter Roach, Jane Setter and John Esling, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press
2. ^ a b c d Harper, Douglas. Online Etymology Dictionary, https://www.etymonline.com
3. ^ a b c d e f g h i j Barnhart, Robert K. (1988), The Barnhart Dictionary of Etymology
4. ^ a b Hoad, T. F., ed. (1986), The Concise Oxford Dictionary of English Etymology, Oxford: Clarendon Press
5. ^ Merriam-Webster Unabridged Dictionary (2024), online ed., Springfield, Mass.: Merriam-Webster
6. ^ a b Shorter Oxford English Dictionary on Historical Principles (2002), 5th ed., ed. William R. Trumble and Angus Stevenson, Oxford: Oxford University Press
7. ^ a b c d e Simpson, J. A.; Weiner, E. S. C., eds. (1989), The Oxford English Dictionary, 2nd ed., Oxford: Clarendon Press
8. ^ Collins English Dictionary (2023), Glasgow: HarperCollins
9. ^ The American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language (1992), 3rd ed., Boston: Houghton Mifflin