Phrasal Verbs with PASS: 12 Essential Expressions | PASS 英文片語動詞完整指南

The word “pass” is one of those verbs that looks simple until you add a preposition. Attach away, out, or up, and you get a word with almost nothing to do with the original meaning. Taiwan English learners often encounter pass away first, then run into pass off in conversation and draw a complete blank. This guide fixes that: 12 phrasal verbs with PASS, organized by theme, with a grammar note at the end on separable vs. inseparable forms.

12 個 PASS 片語動詞一覽表 [Quick Overview: 12 Phrasal Verbs with PASS]

Save this table before you dive in. It gives you the Chinese translation and one quick example for each phrasal verb — use it as a reference while you read the detailed explanations below.

pass away 和 pass out：最容易混淆的兩個 [pass away and pass out: The Two Most Confused]

These two look similar on paper but mean completely different things. Worse, pass out has two separate meanings — which catches even intermediate learners off guard.

pass away is a polite way to say someone has died. English speakers use it when they want to soften the news, particularly in personal conversations, condolence messages, and obituaries. The Cambridge Dictionary defines it as a gentle alternative to “die,” making it a euphemism — not the clinical term, and not what you would use in a military news report. In everyday conversation and formal letters of condolence, it is by far the most common way to discuss someone’s death.

• Her aunt passed away peacefully in her sleep after a long illness.
• I was so sorry to hear that your father passed away.
• The singer passed away at 67, just weeks after completing his final album.

pass out has two meanings that share nothing except the words. The first: to lose consciousness — from heat, illness, alcohol, shock, or anything that makes a person faint. The second: to distribute something to a group, handing items to each person one at a time. In a classroom, a teacher passes out worksheets. At a hot outdoor event, a runner might pass out.

• Two athletes passed out during the marathon due to extreme heat. (lost consciousness)
• Can you pass out the exam papers while I write the instructions on the board? (distribute)
• She passed out flyers at the entrance to advertise the opening. (distribute)

Context almost always makes the meaning clear — nobody hands out papers while fainting. But in written English, when the situation is ambiguous, “faint” or “hand out” are clearer substitutes.

pass up 和 pass on：婉拒機會的兩種說法 [pass up and pass on: Two Ways to Decline]

Both of these can mean declining something, but they carry different weight and appear in different situations.

pass up means to turn down or miss an opportunity — almost always with the implication that it was a genuinely good one, and that declining it was a loss. When someone says “I passed up a great opportunity,” the tone is usually regretful. The phrase only works when the thing being declined had real value. You would never say “I passed up the chance to eat bad food” — it would not make sense.

• She passed up a full scholarship because she was not ready to leave her family.
• Don’t pass up this chance — interviews like this come once every few years.
• He passed up the promotion because the new role required weekly travel.

pass on is more neutral and flexible. It can mean to transfer something — a message, information, a habit, a disease — to someone else. It can also mean to politely decline something, but unlike pass up, the thing being declined can be small. Turning down a dessert, skipping an event, or saying no to something you simply do not want are all natural uses of pass on.

• Could you pass on this message to the director when you see her? (transfer)
• I will pass on dessert tonight, thanks. (polite decline)
• The habit of saving everything was passed on through three generations of the family. (transmitted over time)

The practical difference: use pass up when the thing declined was genuinely valuable. Use pass on for neutral refusals or for forwarding something to another person.

pass by 和 pass through：經過的兩種方式 [pass by and pass through: Two Ways of Going Past]

pass by means to go past something or someone without stopping, or for time to go past without you noticing it. Both the physical and abstract uses are common.

• We passed by the old market on the way to the station. (physical)
• Three months passed by before I heard from him again. (time)
• That opportunity passed me by without me even realizing it was there. (abstract)

pass through also means to go past, but with the sense of moving from one side of something to the other — entering and exiting a place, not just walking alongside it. It is the standard expression for transit: stopping briefly in a city, clearing customs at an airport, or traveling across a region without staying.

• We are just passing through Taichung on our way to Tainan.
• The high-speed rail passes through six cities before reaching the southern terminal.
• She passed through customs without any issues and headed straight to the gate.

A useful distinction: pass by is about proximity — you were near something and kept moving. Pass through is about trajectory — you entered one side of a place and came out the other side.

pass around、pass along、pass down：傳遞的三種方式 [Three Ways to Pass Something Along]

These three all involve transferring something from one person to another — but in different directions and across different distances in time.

pass around means to distribute something to a group of people in the same space. The item physically moves from person to person, one at a time.

• Pass the appetizers around so everyone at the table gets some.
• The chairperson passed the report around before the meeting started.

pass along is about forwarding something through a chain — usually information, a message, or an instruction. The item moves from you to the next person, who may pass it on further.

• Could you pass along my congratulations to the whole team?
• She passed along the email without reading it first.

pass down is specifically about inheritance across time — skills, traditions, objects, stories, or knowledge that move from one generation to the next. It is the only one of the three that implies a long span of time, and it appears most frequently in the passive voice.

• This jade bracelet has been passed down through four generations of the family.
• Traditional cooking techniques are passed down through practice, not just written recipes.

pass off 和 pass over：較少見但重要 [pass off and pass over: Less Common but Important]

pass off has two distinct meanings. The first: to present something as what it is not — usually a fake presented as genuine. The second: when an event runs smoothly from start to finish with no problems.

• He tried to pass off a forged certificate as genuine during the interview. (deception)
• The annual conference passed off without any problems despite the tight schedule. (proceeded smoothly)

pass over means to skip or overlook someone — usually in a context where that person deserved recognition but did not get it. According to Merriam-Webster, the phrase often describes being intentionally bypassed in favor of someone or something else. It carries a negative connotation in most professional settings.

• She was passed over for the manager position in favor of someone with less experience.
• Let’s pass over that section for now and return to it at the end.

For anyone working in an English-speaking workplace or preparing for job interviews, pass over is among the most practical expressions in this list. It comes up in promotion conversations, performance reviews, and office discussions more often than most learners expect.

影片學習：PASS 片語動詞實戰 [Video: PASS Phrasal Verbs in Real Conversation]

This engVid lesson covers the most common phrasal verbs with PASS with visual examples and quiz questions — a strong follow-up to what you have just read:

語法重點：可分離 vs 不可分離 [Grammar: Separable vs. Inseparable]

Some phrasal verbs with PASS are separable — you can place an object between the verb and the particle. Others are inseparable — the particle stays right next to the verb. The rule that trips up most learners: when the object is a pronoun (it, them, him, her), it must go in the middle for separable phrasal verbs. You can say “pass the papers out” or “pass out the papers,” but you can only say “pass them out” — never “pass out them.”

For a full explanation of how separable and inseparable phrasal verbs work, see our guide on phrasal verb word order: separable vs. inseparable. To see how PASS compares to other common particles, the phrasal verbs with FALL article covers a similar set with parallel structures. For the widest overview of the most common phrasal verbs in English, the 50 most common phrasal verbs guide organizes them by particle so you can see the full PASS family in context.

快速練習 [Quick Practice: Fill in the Blank]

Six sentences. Fill in the correct PASS phrasal verb for each one. Answers follow in parentheses.

1. My grandfather _____________ his woodworking skills _____________ to every grandchild in the family. (passed down)
2. She _____________ a full scholarship because she was not ready to move abroad at eighteen. (passed up)
3. Can you _____________ my apologies _____________ to the client? I have another call. (pass along / pass on)
4. He _____________ during the presentation — the room was 35 degrees with no air conditioning. (passed out)
5. The senior candidate was _____________ _____________ for director in favor of an external hire. (passed over)
6. They are not staying the night — they are just _____________ _____________ on their way to Kaohsiung. (passing through)

If you got all six right, these are already in your active vocabulary — start using them this week. If you stumbled on a few, go back and re-read those sections, then write your own example sentences. Writing forces you to produce the phrase rather than just recognize it, and that is the step most learners skip entirely.

출처

1. Cambridge Dictionary: pass away — formal definition and usage notes for the death euphemism.
2. Cambridge Dictionary: pass out — both meanings (lose consciousness and distribute) with example sentences.
3. Merriam-Webster: pass over — definition of being overlooked or bypassed in professional and general contexts.