in passing
25
3.8
- idiom
- She only spoke of her old job in passing, focusing more on her current position.
- mentioned in passing
- note in passing
- only in passing
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Watch on YouTubeAnd you might just in passing say, oh, I know what you mean.
- And you might just in passing say, oh, I know what you mean.
- And I left out a huge part where I mentioned in passing the periodic killing sprees.
- You mentioned in passing that I trained myself to write in college.
- I mentioned them in passing before, but they are Morvens nephews.
- We may like people we see infrequently or even just in passing.
- It's like they know no one else except they might have met people in passing through us but there's no one like back home.
- You said something kind of in passing that I was wondering if you could elaborate on a little bit.
- So we're fast forwarding through the healing, through the separation, through us not talking for years, maybe seeing each other in passing, but not really talking.
- Andrew says she drills down on him for hours at a time, if he even mentions another woman in passing.
- I want to say in passing, you know, it wasn't a moment in time where it's like, I just thought, oh, you know, he was really nice.
Examples
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I've mentioned Henry George's name in passing in this class.
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By then, her stories had touched many souls, some of whom I came to know in passing.
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And you might just in passing say, oh, I know what you mean.
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I mentioned it in passing, but I want to tie it back here.
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And that, in passing, brings up the the point you just made as to why this is so difficult.
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The building had been mentioned almost in passing.
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Well, I might see her again just in passing.
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You mentioned in passing that I trained myself to write in college.
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Eve did mention the play, but in passing.
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So you mentioned in passing that mass is the inverse of length.
Synonyms
3
4.2
In a small way that is not the main thing
1
6.7
To mention something briefly without giving details
1
5.9
Briefly and only a little for a short time
1
9.9
To say something quickly as a side remark, not as the main point
Antonyms
How Emphasized
Surface Forms
Morphology
The meaning 'incidentally' or 'briefly' is directly recoverable from combining 'in' (marking manner/time) with 'passing' (brief, transient), so a B1 learner who knows both constituents can infer the MWE. This compositional pattern is cross-linguistically common (e.g. French 'en passant', Spanish 'de pasada') and follows straightforward English adjective + prepositional usage.
Etymology
In passing comes from the simple image of passing by someone or something: you do not stop, you only move past it. So when you mention something in passing, you say it quickly and only as a small, 'incidentally' comment.