Passes

Passes is the plural of pass and is used across several domains to describe different concepts that share a core idea of permission, movement, or passage.

In access and travel, a pass refers to a credential or ticket that allows entry to a place, service, or event. Examples include boarding passes for air travel, transit passes for buses or subways, and security passes that grant access to workplaces or restricted facilities. Passes may be physical cards, digital credentials, or tickets and typically require verification and may have expiry dates or usage restrictions.

In geography, a pass is a route through or over a mountain range or ridge that connects different valleys or basins. Mountain passes have historically enabled trade, migration, and military movement and today serve as transportation corridors and scenic routes.

In sports and games, a pass is an act of delivering the ball or puck to a teammate. In team sports such as football (soccer), basketball, or hockey, passes are central to strategy and can take various forms, including forward, lateral, or backward passes. In bidding card games like bridge, a player may “pass” to decline to bid, with the term also used in scoring and play contexts.

In leisure and commerce, season passes or entry passes grant repeated access to venues such as theme parks, museums, or stadiums. The word also appears in expressions like time passes, describing the progression of time.

See also: Pass (disambiguation).