hall pass
1
8.3
- noun
- NSFW
:
pase libre
- I have a hall pass.
Examples
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During their discussion, she mentioned that her partner knows about her hall pass for a celebrity encounter.
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Got a hall pass?
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For me, it's going to be tell me your number one hall pass, like with Tyler, like who is your hall pass?
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She was surprised when he said he got a hall pass to go on a date with someone else.
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He joked about his hall pass for a famous actress during their conversation about relationships.
Synonyms
11
3.4
A ticket that lets someone enter a place without paying
How Official
Surface Forms
Morphology
While the word 'pass' (a permit) is transparent, the constituent 'hall' (a corridor) gives no cue to the idiomatic sense of permission for sexual/romantic activity; a B1 learner would most likely infer the literal school-related meaning (a permit to be in the hall) rather than the relationship-related sense. The romantic/sexual meaning is a culturally specific extension and cannot be predicted from the parts, so it is opaque to learners who know only the individual words.
Etymology
Hall pass (informal) uses the school image: one popular story says a partner jokingly gives a pass like the school one to allow a short outing. So today it means 'permission to be with someone outside the relationship'.