passport
UK /ˈpɑːspɔːt/ · US /ˈpæspɔɹt/ noun, verb
Forms passports passporting passported
- noun An official document normally used for international journeys, which proves the identity and nationality of the person for whom it was issued. “You will have to bring your passport to prove who you are.”
- noun (by extension, informal) Any document that allows entry or passage.
- noun (figurative) Something which enables someone to do or achieve something. “The tenor's voice was his passport to the international concert circuit.”
- noun An identification document used by firefighters, collected when they enter a dangerous area and returned when they leave, to keep track of who is still in the area.
- verb To regulate how money given to a local authority must be spent.
- verb Providing the legal requirements to enable or legitimize cross-border economic activity.
- verb To enable eligibility for a benefit automatically based on eligibility for a different benefit.
Synonyms
Etymology
From French passeport, from passer (“pass”) + port (“port”). Compare portpass. Equivalent to pass + port.
Webster’s 1913
- noun Permission to pass; a document given by the competent officer of a state, permitting the person therein named to pass or travel from place to place, without molestation, by land or by water.
- noun A document carried by neutral merchant vessels in time of war, to certify their nationality and protect them from belligerents; a sea letter.
Etymology [F. passeport, orig., a permission to leave a port or to sail into it; passer to pass + port a port, harbor. See Pass, and Port a harbor.]
Sources: Wiktionary · WordNet 3.0 · Webster’s 1913 — from the Wiktionary entry “passport”, CC BY-SA 4.0. Details