passenger
pronunciation
How to pronounce passenger in British English:
UK [ˈpæsɪndʒə(r)]
How to pronounce passenger in American English:
US [ˈpæsɪndʒər]
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- Noun:
- a traveler riding in a vehicle (a boat or bus or car or plane or train etc) who is not operating it
Word Origin
- passenger
- passenger: [14] Originally a passenger was a passager – someone who goes on a ‘passage’, makes a journey. The word was borrowed from Old French passager, at first an adjective meaning ‘passing’, which was derived from passage. The n began to appear in the mid-15th century, a product of the same phonetic process as produced the n of harbinger and messenger.=> pass
- passenger (n.)
- early 14c., passager "passer-by," from Old French passagier "traveler, passer-by" (Modern French passager), noun use of passagier (adj.) "passing, fleeting, traveling," from passage (see passage). And in this I resemble the Lappwing, who fearing hir young ones to be destroyed by passengers, flyeth with a false cry farre from their nestes, making those that looke for them seeke where they are not .... [John Lyly, "Euphues and His England," 1580] The -n- was added early 15c. (compare messenger, harbinger, scavenger, porringer). Meaning "one traveling in a vehicle or vessel" first attested 1510s. Passenger-pigeon of North America so called from 1802; extinct since 1914.
Example
- 1. One passenger drowned . The rest were put ashore .
- 2. Passenger numbers have fallen sharply since the wenzhou crash .
- 3. Today , cross-harbor ferry traffic accounts for less than 1 % of total passenger numbers .
- 4. First a passenger must actually get a seat .
- 5. An apparent passenger was arrested at the scene .