Meanings
- Incidentally; as a brief diversion from another topic etc.
We mostly talked about his mother's illness, but he told me in passing that he'd won a small prize in the lottery.
2 more examples
Did she mention my name just in passing?
1968, “Did She Mention My Name?”, performed by Gordon LightfootAnd that number, 400 million[subscribers], does not account for the people who watch MrBeast’s videos in passing, or who are aware of his cultural presence because of their children, or who just sort of know who he is but don’t have any intricate awareness as to why he is famous.
2025 June 3, Mark O’Connell, “‘The Mozart of the attention economy’: why MrBeast is the world’s biggest YouTube star”, in The Guardian, archived from the original on 07 Jun 2025Synonyms: en passant
Synonyms & antonyms
prepositional phraseIncidentally; as a brief diversion from another topic etc.
More synonyms by meaning
adverbincidentally; in the course of doing something else
Synonym sets from Open English WordNet, CC BY 4.0.
Translations
Arabic بِشَكْلٍ عَابِرٍ
- بِشَكْلٍ عَابِرٍ (bišaklin ʕābirin)incidentally
Bulgarian мимоходом
- мимоходом (mimohodom)incidentally
Catalan al vol, de passada
- al volincidentally
- de passadaincidentally
Chinese Mandarin 順便 /顺便
- 順便 /顺便 (shùnbiàn)incidentally
Dutch in het voorbijgaan, en passant
- in het voorbijgaanincidentally
- en passantincidentally
- terloopsincidentally
Finnish ohimennen
- ohimennenincidentally
French en passant
- en passantincidentally
German beiläufig, nebenbei
- beiläufigincidentally
- nebenbeiincidentally
- zwischen Tür und Angelincidentally
Icelandic í framhjáhlaupi
- í framhjáhlaupiincidentally
Latin obiter
- obiterincidentally
Portuguese de passagem
- de passagemincidentally
Russian мимохо́дом, вскользь
- мимохо́дом (mimoxódom)incidentally
- вскользь (vskolʹzʹ)incidentally
- ме́жду про́чим (méždu próčim)incidentally
Spanish de pasada, de paso
- de pasadaincidentally
- de pasoincidentally
Swedish i förbifarten
- i förbifartenincidentally
Yiddish אַגבֿ־אורחא
- אַגבֿ־אורחא (agev-urkhe)incidentally
Cite this entry
in passing. (n.d.). In WatkinsX Dictionary. Retrieved November 4, 2026, from https://dictionary.watkinsx.com/word/in%20passing
“in passing.” WatkinsX Dictionary, https://dictionary.watkinsx.com/word/in%20passing. Accessed November 4, 2026.
WatkinsX Dictionary, s.v. “in passing,” accessed November 4, 2026, https://dictionary.watkinsx.com/word/in%20passing.
Source: in passing on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.