Literary notes about pass (AI summary)
The word “pass” functions with remarkable versatility in literature, serving both literal and metaphorical roles. Often it denotes the simple progression of time—as when characters “pass the time” or “pass the night” ([1], [2], [3])—yet it also marks significant transitions, such as events that “come to pass” in biblical narratives ([4], [5], [6]) or the movement from one state of thought or circumstance to another in philosophical texts ([7], [8], [9]). In historical and adventure narratives it can describe physical movement, exemplified by journeys through mountain passes or the act of moving through spaces ([10], [11], [12]), while in dialogue it sometimes signals a deliberate dismissal or change of subject ([13], [14]). Whether guiding the rhythm of a narrative or underscoring the transformation of characters and events, “pass” operates on multiple levels to enrich the text’s temporal, spatial, and symbolic dimensions ([15], [16], [17]).
- I imagine a good deal, and that helps to pass the time.
— from Anne of Green Gables by L. M. Montgomery - It was scarcely noon, and I conceived that I might as well pass the night under my own roof as in an inn.
— from Wuthering Heights by Emily Brontë - The youth went with the waggoner, and in the evening they arrived at an inn where they wished to pass the night.
— from Household Tales by Brothers Grimm by Jacob Grimm and Wilhelm Grimm - What follows it, must come to pass.
— from Faust [part 1]. Translated Into English in the Original Metres by Johann Wolfgang von Goethe - And it came to pass in the twelfth year, in the fifteenth day of the month, that the word of the Lord came to me saying: 32:18.
— from The Bible, Douay-Rheims, Complete - So it came to pass in the evening, that quails coming up, covered the camp: and in the morning a dew lay round about the camp.
— from The Bible, Douay-Rheims, Complete - Is not the double also the half, and are not heavy and light relative terms which pass into one another?
— from The Republic by Plato - He is apt to pass from one level or stage of thought to another without always making it apparent that he is changing his ground.
— from Timaeus by Plato - Asking such questions, we pass from the vague to the definite, from the abstract to the concrete.
— from Pragmatism: A New Name for Some Old Ways of Thinking by William James - ‘You can pass through the door; no one hinders.’
— from The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes by Arthur Conan Doyle - (2) pass a Small Creek above the latter which we Call lookout C-.
— from The Journals of Lewis and Clark, 1804-1806 by William Clark and Meriwether Lewis - Should the army forestall you in occupying a pass, do not go after him if the pass is fully garrisoned, but only if it is weakly garrisoned.
— from The Art of War by active 6th century B.C. Sunzi - This latter clause was added in a sort of soliloquy when Rose was gone; but I was not polite enough to let it pass.
— from The Tenant of Wildfell Hall by Anne Brontë - “I will pass over the rest of the details; they are not to the point.
— from Emile by Jean-Jacques Rousseau - "Well, then," said the other, "take this whetstone and cut it through with this razor; this is what I have had in mind to come to pass."
— from Dio's Rome, Volume 1 by Cassius Dio Cocceianus - But we don’t really know anything about it and won’t until the pass list is out.
— from Anne of Green Gables by L. M. Montgomery - " And such might was in the words of her, that even so must it come to pass.
— from The Story of the Volsungs (Volsunga Saga); with Excerpts from the Poetic Edda
