passing

\pa.siŋ\

/\pa.siŋ\/ noun

The verdict

“passing” is uncommon French (frequency #54,146 among 6,826 “P” headwords), classed as a noun. The kind of spelling people second-guess.

#54,146
frequency rank, French
6,826
“P” headwords

According to Wiktionary data (CC BY-SA, analyzed September 3, 2026) - Forme de jonglerie où plusieurs personnes se passent des objets entre elles.

Corpus desk

Index FR-passing · passing · French

passing · rank #54,146 · 0 variants · 0 confusables

  • FREQ-RARE #54,146
  • LEN-LONG 7 letters
  • VOW-2 2 vowels
  • CONFUS-0 No pairs
  • VAR-0 0 variants
  • BOOK-DENSE 6,826
  • PHOTO-FINISH parqués

Nearest frequency peer: parqués (-1 rank slots)

Desk codes from Wiktionary headword shape, FrequencyWords rank tier, confusable-pair count, generated misspelling depth, letter-cohort book size, and photo-finish peer. Not a difficulty grade.

Rangs de longue queue près de « passing »

Bande clairsemée: les barres inversent le rang pour que le rare se lise plus court

corpus weight

What this shows Vue de longue queue: où « passing » se situe face à des rangs français aussi rares.

Source FrequencyWords open word-frequency list As of September 3, 2026
Key facts for passing
PropertyValue
Headwordpassing
LanguageFrench
Part of speechNoun
IPA\pa.siŋ\
Letters7
Frequency rank#54,146
Misspellings tracked0
Confusable pairs0
SourceWiktionary (kaikki.org)

Longue queue: rang de « passing » en français

La fréquence va de la poignée de mots du quotidien (gauche) à la longue queue presque jamais vue (droite).passingtombe dans cette queue de rareté:

#1#100#1K#10K#100K
← used constantlyrarely used →

L'axe est logarithmique: chaque tic marque environ dix fois moins de fréquence. Voisins rares de la même bande: « parqués » (#54,145), « parolier » (#54,144), « peanuts » (#54,148). Parmi 6,826 lemmes en « P », « passing » est au #54,146. Source: FrequencyWords open word-frequency list.

Rare enough to double-check

passing is uncommon French at frequency #54,146 among 6,826 “P” headwords, classed as anoun, transcribed \pa.siŋ\. Rarity is why readers land here mid-draft. 4 senses are on record.

passing doesn't appear in our generated misspelling index, a straightforward case of a spelling with little room for common typos. We don't track a confusable pairing for this entry, since nothing in our dataset looks or sounds close enough to cause mix-ups.

No documented word history exists for this headword, so its spelling is best explained by sound-to-letter mapping rather than etymology. The correct French form is passing, spelled P-A-S-S-I-N-G.

Definition

  1. 1
    Forme de jonglerie où plusieurs personnes se passent des objets entre elles.
  2. 2
    Abréviation de passing-shot.
  3. 3
    Dans le cas d'une personne trans, le fait d’être habituellement perçue, aux yeux des autres, comme une personne cisgenre.
  4. 4
    Quelqu’un, quelque chose qui passe pour une autre personne, une autre chose.

Recorded use

Wiktionary examples

These source excerpts show how passing appears in context. They illustrate usage; the definition above remains the entry’s reference meaning.

  1. C'était un numéro de passing notamment, à deux trapèzes et neuf massues. Loco y assurait la réception au sol, renvoyant aux deux acrobates qui se croisaient en mouvement synchronisé les massues tournoyantes.
  2. Bastien travaillait un passing de massues avec Rémi et j'en ai compté sept. L'une d'elles montait toujours plus haut que les autres et les bras faisaient des mouvements continus, les massues émettant un bruit clair et creux lorsqu'elles claquaient contre les mains des jongleurs.

Definitions, pronunciation, and etymology for this entry are drawn from Wiktionary via the kaikki.org structured extract (CC BY-SA); frequency ordering uses the FrequencyWords open word-frequency list (2018 French corpus, MIT). See the methodology for how each field is sourced and updated.

Frequently Asked Questions

How do you spell "passing"?
"passing" is spelled P-A-S-S-I-N-G. The IPA pronunciation is \pa.siŋ\.
What does "passing" mean?
As a noun, "passing" means: Forme de jonglerie où plusieurs personnes se passent des objets entre elles.
How do you pronounce "passing"?
The IPA (International Phonetic Alphabet) transcription for "passing" is \pa.siŋ\. Click the speaker icon on the pronunciation badge above to hear it spoken aloud where audio is available.
What language does "passing" come from?
"passing" is a French word. PlainSpell covers definitions, pronunciations, and spelling data across English, Spanish, Portuguese, French, and German.
Is PlainSpell free to use?
Yes, PlainSpell is a completely free word reference. You can look up definitions, pronunciations, confusable pairs, homophones, and spelling corrections across 5 languages without any sign-up or subscription.

Similar French words by spelling shape

Same letter count and similar misspelling depth for "passing", not the corpus desk frequency band.

Same letter count

Frequency-ranked French headwords with 7 letters (nearest by frequency rank).

Source: Wiktionary (via kaikki.org) Structured Wiktionary extract

Source: FrequencyWords open word-frequency list