to passed away
249
2.7
- phrasal verb
- /pæst əˈweɪ/
- Governor-General Sir Michael Ogio passed away in February after a long struggle with health issues.
- mother passed away
- father passed away
- recently passed away
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Watch on YouTubeAnd then recently, poor Rachel passed away during COVID.
- And then recently, poor Rachel passed away during COVID.
- I've been with my own father as he passed away in our home.
- But her her husband had passed away a few years ago.
- Dear Santa, My mom passed away and I'm all by myself.
- Maybe when you've passed away, maybe that can happen.
- If my mom passed away, would I be OK?
- Sister Jocelyn just passed away last night.
- You talked about your father passing away from Alzheimer's.
- So he passed away a few weeks ago.
- Just thinking about my makeup artist who passed away on New Year's.
- Nancy is the wife of my partner who passed away from ovarian cancer.
- And when one of them passes away, the other one often passes away suspiciously soon after.
- My dad's sister just passed away three days ago on last Friday.
- Well, he one of the twins, he passed away recently, Carlos.
- He was our mentor and teacher and he passed away yesterday, Martin Kilson.
- It was my mother had my mother passed away very young in our lives.
Examples
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After battling illness for months, my neighbor sadly passed away last week.
-
Sister Jocelyn just passed away last night.
-
But her her husband had passed away a few years ago.
-
So he passed away a few weeks ago.
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My mom passed away in September from cancer.
-
Mr. Brown passed away several years ago.
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Well, my husband passed away.
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Sadly, Doctor Johnson passed away in April of this year.
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Yeah, unfortunately, Ruan passed away recently.
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Philip P. Choy, 90, passed away at his San Francisco home last week.
Academic text (2017)
Synonyms
423
3.8
To stop living
25
8.6
To die, often used in medical or formal speech
20
3.8
To die peacefully in a gentle, respectful way
5
9.1
To die peacefully, people say this as a gentle way to talk about someone's death
5
8.1
To die or stop working after a long time of problems
To stop living
Antonyms
Surface Forms
Morphology
The constituents 'pass' (to go/move/change) and 'away' (to go away/disappear) give a metaphorical sense of someone 'going away' from life, so there is a recognisable connection to dying. However, the meaning 'to die' is a conventionalised euphemism and requires cultural/expositional knowledge; a B1 learner who only knows the literal words may not reliably infer the idiomatic sense.
Etymology
Passed away comes from a gentle image where someone passed, meaning 'moved', away as if walking into another room or place. That's why the phrase is used to mean 'to die' in a polite way.