passing

English Online Dictionary. What means passing‎? What does passing mean?

English

Etymology

From pass +‎ -ing.

Pronunciation

• (UK) IPA^(key): /ˈpɑːsɪŋ/

Verb

passing

1. present participle and gerund of pass

Adjective

passing (comparative more passing, superlative most passing)

1. That passes away; ephemeral. [from 14th c.]
2. (now rare, literary) Pre-eminent, excellent, extreme. [from 14th c.]
3. Vague, cursory. [from 18th c.]
4. Going past.

5. That passes in any sense.

Derived terms

Translations

Adverb

passing (not comparable)

1. (literary or archaic) Surpassingly, greatly. [from 14th c.]

Usage notes

• This use is sometimes misconstrued as meaning "vaguely" or "slightly" (perhaps by confusion with such phrases as "passing fancy", under Adjective, above), leading to formations such as "more than passing clever" etc.

Translations

Noun

passing (countable and uncountable, plural passings)

1. Death, dying; the end of something. [from 14th c.]
2. The fact of going past; a movement from one place to another or a change from one state to another. [from 14th c.]
3. (law) The act of approving a bill etc. [from 15th c.]
4. (sports) The act of passing a ball etc. to another player. [from 19th c.]
5. A form of juggling where several people pass props between each other, usually clubs or rings.
6. (sociology) The ability of a person to be regarded as a member of an identity group or category different from their own.

   Coordinate term: pass

   • 1963, Erving Goffman, 'Notes on the Management of Spoiled Identity' , Ch.2 at p.57, 58 (page numbers per the Pelican Books 1976 reprint)

     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 dealing with until now.
     [...] However, when his differentness is not immediately apparent, and is not known beforehand, [...] he is a discreditable, not a discredited person [...]. The issue is [...] that of managing information about his failing. To display or not to display; to tell or not to tell; to let on or not to let on; to lie or not to lie; and in each case, to whom, how, when, and where.
     [...] It is this second general issue, the management of undisclosed discrediting information about self, that I am focusing on in these notes - in brief, 'passing'.

Derived terms

Descendants

• → Japanese: パッシング (passhingu)

Translations

Related terms

French

Etymology

Borrowed from English passing.

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): /pa.siŋ/ ~ /pɑ.siŋ/

Noun

passing m (uncountable)

1. (juggling) passing

   Le passing, ou comment jongler à plusieurs. (www.multiloisirs.com)

Further reading

• “passing”, in Trésor de la langue française informatisé [Digitized Treasury of the French Language], 2012.