# passenger

Pronunciation: US say "PAS-in-jur" /ˈpæsɪnd͡ʒɚ/; UK say "PAS-in-juh" /ˈpæsɪnd͡ʒə/

## Noun

1. A person who travels in a vehicle without operating it or being a member of the crew.
   - Simple: A person who rides in a car, bus, plane, or boat but does not drive or work on it.
   - _Each passenger fastened a seatbelt before the plane took off._
   - _The ferry can carry up to two hundred passengers at a time._
2. A team member who does not pull their weight, leaving the others to carry the work. *(colloquial, UK)*
   - Simple: A member of a group who lets others do most of the work.
   - _The coach dropped two passengers who had coasted through training._
   - _She refused to be a passenger and took on the hardest tasks herself._
4. Any of the individual warheads carried by a missile built to deliver several that are each aimed independently.
   - Simple: One of the several separate warheads that a single large missile carries and launches.
   - _Analysts counted the passengers each missile could carry under the treaty limits._
   - _Once the missile reached its apex, each passenger separated to follow its own trajectory._
5. A young hawk captured for falconry after it can fly but while still in its first year.
   - Simple: A young hawk caught for training during its first year of life, after it can already fly.
   - _She flew a passenger that season, prizing its keen wild instincts._
   - _Experienced falconers often prefer a passenger to a nestling for its hardiness._
6. A moth of the species Dysgonia algira, belonging to the family Erebidae.
   - Simple: A type of moth, called Dysgonia algira by scientists.
   - _The collector pinned a passenger beside the other underwing moths in the tray._
   - _At dusk, passengers gathered around the moth trap set up in the orchard._

## Verb

3. To travel in a vehicle as a rider rather than as the person driving it.
   - Simple: To ride in a vehicle that someone else is driving.
   - _He prefers to passenger so he can enjoy the scenery along the way._
   - _They passengered across the country, swapping only to navigate at the junctions._

## Noun

7. A migratory bird; one that travels from region to region with the changing seasons. *(obsolete)*
   - Simple: A bird that flies to a different place when the seasons change.
8. A person passing by on foot; a traveler along a road or way. *(obsolete)*
   - Simple: A person walking past or traveling along a road.
9. A ship for carrying travelers from place to place across water; a ferryboat. *(obsolete)*
   - Simple: A boat that carries people across water, like a ferry.

## Origin

From Old French "passagier," which gained an intrusive "n": the same change seen in the word "messenger."

Source: DictionaryAI, https://dictionaryai.com/define/passenger (written from Wiktionary data, CC BY-SA 4.0: https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/).