passage

Etymology 1

Borrowed into Middle English from Old French passage, from passer (“to pass”).

noun

1. A paragraph or section of text or music with particular meaning.
   passage of scripture
   She struggled to play the difficult passages.
2. Part of a path or journey.
   He made his passage through the trees carefully, mindful of the stickers.
3. An incident or episode.
   But there are those who do not feel that the sordid passages of life should be kept off the stage. It is a matter of opinion. 1961, United States. Congress. House. Committee on Foreign Affairs, Mutual Educational and Cultural Exchange Act of 1961: Hearings
4. The official approval of a bill or act by a parliament.
   The company was one of the prime movers in lobbying for the passage of the act.
5. The advance of time.
   The passage of decades has not erased the value of parental monitoring. 2011, Roy F. Baumeister, John Tierney, Willpower, page 209
6. (art) The use of tight brushwork to link objects in separate spatial plains. Commonly seen in Cubist works.
7. A passageway or corridor.
8. (nautical) A strait or other narrow waterway.
   the Northwest Passage
9. (caving) An underground cavity, formed by water or falling rocks, which is much longer than it is wide.
10. (euphemistic) The vagina.
    With a look of triumph that he was unable to keep from his dark eyes he slid into her passage with one smooth thrust, […] 1986, Bertrice Small, A Love for All Time, New American Library, page 463
    This way, the tip of your penis will travel up and down her passage. 1987, Usha Sarup, Expert Lovemaking, Jaico Publishing House, page 53
    At the same moment, Aidan plunged two fingers deep into her passage and broke through her fragile barrier. 2009, Cat Lindler, Kiss of a Traitor, Medallion Press, page 249
11. The act of passing; movement across or through.
    He claimed that he felt the passage of the knife through the ilio-cæcal valve, from the very considerable pain which it caused. 1886, Pacific medical journal, volume 29
12. The right to pass from one place to another.
13. A fee paid for passing or for being conveyed between places.
14. (bacteriology, virology) Serial passage.
15. (dice games, historical) A gambling game for two players using three dice, in which the object is to throw a double over ten.

verb

1. (medicine) To pass something, such as a pathogen or stem cell, through a host or medium.
   He passaged the virus through a series of goats.
   After 24 hours, the culture was passaged to an agar plate.
2. (rare) To make a passage, especially by sea; to cross.
   They passaged to America in 1902.

adj

1. (falconry, attributive) Of a bird: Less than a year old but living on its own, having left the nest.
   Passage red-tailed hawks are preferred by falconers because these younger birds have not yet developed the adult behaviors which would make them more difficult to train.

Etymology 2

From French passager, from Italian passeggiare.

noun

1. (dressage) A movement in classical dressage, in which the horse performs a very collected, energetic, and elevated trot that has a longer period of suspension between each foot fall than a working trot.

verb

1. (intransitive, dressage) To execute a passage movement.
   After a spring or two, the horse passaged and reared, and lighting on a flat slab of rock which cropped up in the middle of the road, slipped sideways and fell with a loud crash […] 1915, Cunninghame Graham, Hope, page 18