passel
Americannoun
noun
Etymology
Origin of passel
First recorded in 1825–35; alteration of parcel
Explanation
You can use the noun passel when you're talking about a group or a bunch of something. Your friends might decide to hire a bus to drive a whole passel of kids to an amusement park. The informal passel is a great way to talk about a large but vague number of things or people, like a passel of cousins at Thanksgiving or a passel of puppies at the local animal shelter. Passel is a nineteenth century invention, a U.S. dialect version of parcel, "quantity, part, or portion."
Vocabulary lists containing passel
The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn
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Wish
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"Spunk" by Zora Neale Hurston
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Example Sentences
Examples are provided to illustrate real-world usage of words in context. Any opinions expressed do not reflect the views of Dictionary.com.
Bianco, fellow Republican Steve Hilton and a passel of Democratic hopefuls are bunched together in a contest that remains utterly wide open just weeks before voters start receiving their ballots in the mail.
From Los Angeles Times • Mar. 29, 2026
Then he secretly purchases a passel of tortoises; constructs a long-handled grabber; leans down from his balcony; extracts Alfie; and, each week, substitutes a slightly heavier impostor.
From The Wall Street Journal • Feb. 23, 2026
Affordable, capable, and practical, the subcompact 2026 Subaru Crosstrek is also a passel of fun.
From MarketWatch • Nov. 26, 2025
First, the attorney general could not unilaterally throw the entire mass of non-grand jury Epstein evidence into the public domain, at least not without violating a passel of statutes and DOJ internal rules and norms.
From Slate • Jul. 21, 2025
“No, but there was a passel of Reb generals there; Van Dorn was one of ’em, and McCulloch, and Pike—he’s the one that had a band of Indians fightin’ fer him.”
From "Across Five Aprils" by Irene Hunt
Definitions and idiom definitions from Dictionary.com Unabridged, based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2023
Idioms from The American Heritage® Idioms Dictionary copyright © 2002, 2001, 1995 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company.
