What does “passé” mean?

How is “passé” pronounced?

With two syllables, owing to its accent, the word is pronounced “pass-AY,” with the emphasis on the second syllable.

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As a loanword from French, the accent is vital to its spelling. Derived from the French word passer, which means to pass, its definition relates to the strong idea that trends are constantly changing, how styles, fashions, and popular culture are fickle by their very nature.

How do you use “passé” in a sentence?

As an adjective, passé is a classier way to refer to yesterday’s styles and trends. It can be used before or after the noun it’s describing and combined with other words it can form a compound adjective. Below are some examples:

• After the rise of the foppish male in culture, powdered wigs were considered passé.
• Nobody says “daddy-o,” “groovy,” “don’t have a cow,” or other passé terms anymore.
• Now passé, early rappers would say “My name is [blank] and I’m here to say…”

How does “passé” compare to its synonyms?

Passé is a less technical and more elegant way to describe something that is outdated—and ironically, the word itself is timeless. Compare the usage of the word passé to its synonyms:

• old hat
• out-of-date
• tired
• faded
• trite
• archaic
• so yesterday

Not all these synonyms are an exact match. “Archaic,” for example, can refer to fashion or culture but can also apply to historical artifacts, scientific and engineering fields, or ancient Greece (since the term is derived from Greek itself). “Trite” usually means something that is small or of little importance, and not so much something that is outdated. “Faded” can be more of a physical description, referring to age, wear, or discoloration (i.e., a faded pair of jeans). And “so yesterday” is more contemporary slang that may even be passé in itself!

Words that may sound like “passé”

These following words, while all stemming from the same family as “passé,” are different enough in grammar and meaning to be considered homophones:

• Pass. The literal derivation of “passé” comes from the French verb “to pass,” so it is no surprise that these are similar. However, “pass” is a verb, while “passé” is an adjective, so one would describe fashion and culture as passing by, taking on an active voice instead.
• Past. This word can function as both a noun (the distant past), an adjective (memories of past friends), a preposition indicating location (just past the supermarket) or an adjective like “passé” (flying past my car). It is more versatile than “passé” but refers more to a relationship between the object and the speaker: two entities with space and distance between each other. Therefore, as a way to describe culture, “passé” is the better word to use.
• Passed. This is only ever a verb (the storm passed yesterday), and therefore is different than the previous two words as well as the word “passé.”