- passenger
- early 14c., passager "passer-by," from O.Fr. passageor "traveler," noun use of passagier (adj.) "passing, fleeting, traveling," from passage (see passage). The -n- was added early 15c. (cf. messenger, harbinger, scavenger). Meaning "one traveling in a vehicle or vessel" first attested 1510s. Passenger-pigeon of N.Amer. so called from 1802; extinct since 1914.