kolemjdoucí

kolemjdoucí is a Czech common noun that refers to people who are passing by or walking past a place. The word is a compound of the preposition “kolem” meaning “around” and the root “jdoucí,” a present participle of the verb “jít” (to go). It literally translates to something akin to “one who goes around,” but in everyday usage it is best understood as “passerby” or “onlookers.” The term is typically used in the singular form, yet it can be pluralized to “kolemjdoucí” in the sense of “the passersby” when speaking about a group.

The noun is masculine animate but is often treated as a neutral common noun in colloquial Czech. It can appear in both nominative (to address or to remark) and dative contexts, e.g., “Pozdravte kolemjdoucí” (Greet the passersby). The word is used figuratively as well to denote people who are casually observing an event or situation without direct involvement, for instance in phrases like “kolemjdoucí v životě” (people around in one's life).

In contrast to the English “by‑standers,” which conveys a more forthright notion of observation, “kolemjdoucí” carries a softer sense of incidental passage and lacks an explicit connotation of judgment. The word is relatively stable in contemporary Czech and is regularly found in news reports, literary descriptions, and everyday dialogue. Its usage spreads across all varieties of Czech urban and rural speech, making it a widely recognizable lexical item.