bypass

American  

[bahy-pas, -pahs] / ˈbaɪˌpæs, -ˌpɑs /

Or by-pass

noun

• bypasses
  plural

1. a road enabling motorists to avoid a city or other heavy traffic points or to drive around an obstruction.

2. a secondary pipe or other channel connected with a main passage, as for conducting a liquid or gas around a fixture, pipe, or appliance.

3. Electricity. shunt.

4. a surgical procedure in which a diseased or obstructed hollow organ is temporarily or permanently circumvented.

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verb (used with object)

• bypasses,
  present (3rd person singular)
• bypassed,
  past participle,  past
• bypast,
  past participle,  past
• bypassing
  present participle

1. to avoid (an obstruction, city, etc.) by following a bypass.

2. to cause (fluid or gas) to follow a secondary pipe or bypass.

3. to neglect to consult or to ignore the opinion or decision of.

   He bypassed the foreman and took his grievance straight to the owner.

bypass British  

/ ˈbaɪˌpɑːs /

noun

1. a main road built to avoid a city or other congested area

2. any system of pipes or conduits for redirecting the flow of a liquid

3. a means of redirecting the flow of a substance around an appliance through which it would otherwise pass

4. surgery

   1. the redirection of blood flow, either to avoid a diseased blood vessel or in order to perform heart surgery See coronary bypass

   2. ( as modifier )

      bypass surgery

5. electronics

   1. an electrical circuit, esp one containing a capacitor, connected in parallel around one or more components, providing an alternative path for certain frequencies

   2. ( as modifier )

      a bypass capacitor

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verb

1. to go around or avoid (a city, obstruction, problem, etc)

2. to cause (traffic, fluid, etc) to go through a bypass

3. to proceed without reference to (regulations, a superior, etc); get round; avoid

bypass Scientific  

/ bī′păs′ /

1. A passage created surgically to divert the flow of blood or other bodily fluid or to circumvent an obstructed or diseased organ.

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Other Word Forms

Derived Forms

• by-passer
  noun
• bypasser
  noun

Inflected Forms

Nouns

• bypasses
  plural

Participles

• bypassing
  present
• bypassed
  past
• bypast
  past

Conjugated Forms

Present

• bypass
  simple
• bypasses
  simple
• have bypassed
  perfect
• have bypast
  perfect
• has bypassed
  perfect
• has bypast
  perfect
• am bypassing
  progressive
• are bypassing
  progressive
• is bypassing
  progressive
• have been bypassing
  perfect progressive
• has been bypassing
  perfect progressive

Past

• bypassed
  simple
• bypast
  simple
• had bypassed
  perfect
• had bypast
  perfect
• was bypassing
  progressive
• were bypassing
  progressive
• had been bypassing
  perfect progressive

Future

• will bypass
  simple
• will have bypassed
  perfect
• will have bypast
  perfect
• will be bypassing
  progressive
• will have been bypassing
  perfect progressive

Etymology

Origin of bypass

1840–50; apparently back formation from by-passage; see by (adj.), passage ¹

Explanation

When you bypass something, you avoid it, go around it, or ignore it. You might wish you could just read the books assigned in your English class and bypass the papers and exams. You can bypass something physically, like when you bypass the busiest intersections in town during rush hour, driving on smaller streets instead. You can also bypass things figuratively: political candidates often bypass hard questions from reporters, and big businesses sometimes find ways to bypass some of the taxes they owe. As a noun, a bypass is either an alternative road or route; or a heart operation that allows blood flow when an artery is blocked.

Example Sentences

See Examples For:

bypass bypasses bypassed bypast bypassing

He "offered to bypass the cells", and he was told this would be a temporary fix.

From BBC ● Oct. 8, 2026

But some command codes require only a last name, and that approach can bypass IRS detection, the report said.

From The Wall Street Journal ● Oct. 3, 2026

Shipments via Hormuz and bypass routes were delivering just under 80% of their prewar regional flows as of last week, according to tracker Kpler.

From The Wall Street Journal ● Sep. 29, 2026

Taught by L.A.-based artist and poet Kate Ingold, the workshops center on samizdat, a practice in which Soviet dissidents hand-typed literature, criticism and poetry to bypass state censorship.

From Los Angeles Times ● Sep. 28, 2026

On the bypass, Charlie passed me on his bike.

From "Please Ignore Vera Dietz" by A.S. King

But some of the pollution bypasses the plants and pours directly into the river.

From Los Angeles Times ● Sep. 2, 2026

You don’t want a low-quality battery that might catch fire, or a compromised or modified circuit board that bypasses normal security guards.

From The Wall Street Journal ● Aug. 23, 2026

While it may be scant consolation for those in communties around old urban motorways, bypasses like the one at Port Talbot are less likely to be built now.

From BBC ● Jul. 21, 2026

Permian production bypasses Cushing on its way to Gulf refineries and to export from the newly expanded Port of Corpus Christi through pipelines, which have also been expanded.

From MarketWatch ● Jun. 6, 2026

I saw her across the bay, from the great road that bypasses Sausalito and enters the Golden Gate Bridge.

From "Travels with Charley in Search of America" by John Steinbeck

Law-enforcement searches will require a case number in order to conduct a search by the end of the year, although the system can be bypassed in an emergency, Flock said.

From The Wall Street Journal ● Sep. 23, 2026

However, Shao sees OpenAI’s new ad integration as evidence that “Shopify may be becoming more deeply embedded in agentic commerce rather than being bypassed by it.”

From The Wall Street Journal ● Sep. 18, 2026

Most of the bypassed oil went through the East-West pipeline, which played a bigger role in tamping down crude prices than the IEA’s emergency stock release, or the collapse in Chinese oil demand.

From The Wall Street Journal ● Sep. 17, 2026

"The sites we've currently explored are in south-west Ireland, but it's illogical to presume that early humans just bypassed Wexford, Waterford and Cork, and ploughed on west," said Nash.

From BBC ● Sep. 4, 2026

The Voigt-Kampff test had been administered to Polokov; that part could be bypassed, and he could go directly to the task of destroying the android.

From "Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep?" by Philip K. Dick

The vague apprehensions of bypast years reviving at this crisis, some neighbours had been on the outlook for a catastrophe.

From Chambers's Edinburgh Journal, No. 440 Volume 17, New Series, June 5, 1852 by William Chambers

It's no mony months bypast; it was a lang courtship,—few folk kend the reason by Jenny and mysell.

From Old Mortality, Volume 2. by Sir Walter Scott

By it all Acts bypast, and especially those of the five Jameses, not agreeing with God's Word and contrary to the Confession, and 'wherethrow divers innocents did suffer,' were abolished and extinguished for ever.

From John Knox by A. Taylor Innes

But for these dozen or twenty years bypast we have preferred a narrow beat, snugly seated on a shelty, and pad the hoof on the hill no more.

From Recreations of Christopher North, Volume I (of 2) by John Lyde Wilson

Annual school photographs are a rite of passage but, with technology now able to remove watermarks from preview images in seconds, some parents are bypassing the payment process altogether.

From BBC ● Oct. 9, 2026

On its own, that may read like spiritual bypassing.

From Salon ● Sep. 27, 2026

“Trusts are a common tool for bypassing probate, but states offer other options as well,” it adds.

From MarketWatch ● Sep. 27, 2026

Without careful guardrails in place, children tend to use the platforms as shortcuts to answers, bypassing the messy, difficult cognitive processes that are essential for learning.

From Los Angeles Times ● Sep. 14, 2026

You wash your hands, bypassing the paper towel dispenser, shaking the water off.

From "Legendary Frybread Drive-In" by Cynthia Leitich Smith

Related Words

• circumvent
• ignore
• neglect
• omit
• sidestep
• skirt