Passers

Passers is the plural form of passer, a noun with several related senses in English. The most common sense is a person who passes by a location, i.e., a pedestrian or bystander. In everyday writing, the usual expression for this sense is passer-by or passers-by, with passers alone being relatively uncommon outside older texts or specific stylistic choices.

In sports terminology, a passer is a player who makes passes to teammates. In American football, the quarterback is typically described as the primary passer; in basketball, players who frequently set up teammates with passes are described as good passers. The plural form passers is used when referring to multiple players known for distributing the ball rather than scoring.

Other occasional meanings exist in more general or technical contexts, where passer denotes someone who passes something to another person or stage, though such uses are less common in everyday English. The word originates from the verb pass, via Old French passer, and follows standard English pluralization to form passers.

In standard English usage, passers-by is the preferred term when referring to pedestrians encountered or observed in a public space. The form passers is typically seen mainly in lists, shorthand, or contexts where the full compound is understood. Overall, passers functions as a flexible noun in both everyday and specialized language, with the pedestrian sense and the sports sense being the primary contemporary meanings.