passenger
Americannoun
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passengers
plural
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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.
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a wayfarer; traveler.
noun
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a person travelling in a car, train, boat, etc, not driven by him
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( as modifier )
a passenger seat
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a member of a group or team who is a burden on the others through not participating fully in the work
Other Word Forms
Derived Forms
Inflected Forms
Nouns
Etymology
Origin of passenger
1300–50; Middle English passager < Middle French, noun use of passag ( i ) er (adj.) passing, temporary; see passage 1, -ier 2; for -n- cf. messenger, harbinger, scavenger, popinjay
Explanation
A passenger is a person who rides in a vehicle. If you grab a ride home from school with your best friend, you are a passenger in her car. Everyone riding in a train, plane, bus, or any other vehicle is a passenger — except the driver, pilot, or crew. A passenger's only job is to ride along. In the fourteenth century, a passenger was simply a "passer-by," from the Old French passagier, "passing, fleeting, or traveling." The first instance of the modern use was recorded in the early 1500s.
Vocabulary lists containing passenger
Greetings, World Traveler! — List 1
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"Return to Titanic" and "Talking with Robert Ballard"
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This Week in Words: Current Events Vocab for September 10–September 16, 2022
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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.
See Examples For:
He also recalled spending roughly 90 minutes aboard Air Force One worried that another passenger sleeping on a couch might actually be dead.
From Salon ● Aug. 15, 2026
"The train started rocking violently and then I remember clocking eyes with this guy and then there was a lot of screaming," passenger Rachel Heath said.
From BBC ● Aug. 13, 2026
Other passengers managed to pull the injured passenger back into the cabin.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Aug. 13, 2026
The overloaded government ferry -- a vital link for villagers and fish traders around the vast lake -- overturned in choppy waters on Tuesday in one of the country's worst passenger boat disasters.
From Barron's ● Aug. 13, 2026
Maggie glanced to the passenger side of the truck at the heavy ceramic bowl holding twenty-five-pound bags of self-rising flour.
From "Legendary Frybread Drive-In" by Cynthia Leitich Smith
Eurostar said it transported a record 20 million passengers last year.
From Barron's ● Aug. 17, 2026
Affected passengers were being accommodated on later flights.
From Los Angeles Times ● Aug. 16, 2026
Instead passengers are being advised to travel by rail and tube and to avoid using cars.
From BBC ● Aug. 15, 2026
Most of the flights were cancelled on Friday, with the company saying it wanted to help passengers find alternative routes.
From Barron's ● Aug. 15, 2026
She peered out at the passengers crowding the terminal: tired-looking families sprawled in seats, dark-suited businessmen sprinting down the aisle.
From "Found" by Margaret Peterson Haddix
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.
