passenger

[pas-uh n-jer]

SEE MORE SYNONYMS FOR passenger ON THESAURUS.COM

noun

a person who is traveling in an automobile, bus, train, airplane, or other conveyance, especially one who is not the driver, pilot, or the like.

a wayfarer; traveler.

Origin of passenger

1300–50; Middle English passager < Middle French, noun use of passag(i)er (adj.) passing, temporary; see passage¹, -ier²; for -n- cf. messenger, harbinger, scavenger, popinjay

Related formsnon·pas·sen·ger, noun

Dictionary.com Unabridged Based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2019

Related Words for passenger

customer, fare, tourist, commuter, patron, traveler, rider, pilgrim, wayfarer, excursionist, wanderer, voyager, hitchhiker

Examples from the Web for passenger

Contemporary Examples of passenger

A click sends a user to a statement, a list of passenger nationalities, emergency call-center numbers, and other information.
The Presumed Crash of AirAsia Flight QZ8501 Is Nothing Like MH370
Lennox Samuels
December 29, 2014
Alexander and Adorno were doing what they could to save the officer on the passenger side, Liu.
'Please Don't Die!': The Frantic Battle to Save Murdered Cops
Michael Daly
December 22, 2014
Brinsley stepped up to the passenger side of the patrol car, raised a silver Taurus semi-automatic pistol and began firing.
'Please Don't Die!': The Frantic Battle to Save Murdered Cops
Michael Daly
December 22, 2014
An Uber driver assaulted a passenger and it turned out he had a felony conviction, despite passing the background check.
The Ten Worst Uber Horror Stories
Olivia Nuzzi
November 19, 2014
An Uber driver went on an anti-gay, ant-American rant before physically assaulting his passenger.
The Ten Worst Uber Horror Stories
Olivia Nuzzi
November 19, 2014

Historical Examples of passenger

Half fearfully I look at my passenger, but he is a black man.
Ballads of a Bohemian
Robert W. Service
I was put on board as a passenger, and we sailed about a week after the ship got in from London.
Ned Myers
James Fenimore Cooper
We had a passenger, who passed for some revolutionary man, who also landed secretly.
Ned Myers
James Fenimore Cooper
She was the only passenger in the diligence, and the door was locked.
Hetty's Strange History
Anonymous
As he walked up the deck, he saw there was one passenger who had been earlier than himself.
A Woman Intervenes
Robert Barr

British Dictionary definitions for passenger

passenger

noun

a person travelling in a car, train, boat, etc, not driven by him
(as modifier)a passenger seat

mainly British a member of a group or team who is a burden on the others through not participating fully in the work

Word Origin for passenger

C14: from Old French passager passing, from passage 1

Collins English Dictionary - Complete & Unabridged 2012 Digital Edition © William Collins Sons & Co. Ltd. 1979, 1986 © HarperCollins Publishers 1998, 2000, 2003, 2005, 2006, 2007, 2009, 2012

Word Origin and History for passenger

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. (cf. 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.