Definitions

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  • noun Plural form of passman.

Etymologies

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Examples

  • The evil then, to sum up the result of the _Spectator's_ argument, is that the University elections are determined by the votes of the passmen, and that the mass of the passmen are Tories.

    The Contemporary Review, January 1883 Vol 43, No. 1 Various

  • If Lord Carnarvon looks on all passmen as "men of literary eminence and intellectual power," he must be very nearly right in his figures when he says that three-fourths of such men are opposed to Mr. Gladstone.

    The Contemporary Review, January 1883 Vol 43, No. 1 Various

  • But those who have really profited by their University work may doubt whether passmen as such are entitled to that description.

    The Contemporary Review, January 1883 Vol 43, No. 1 Various

  • They are not educated: they are only college passmen.

    Act III 1903

  • Well, we two know these transfigured persons, these college passmen, these well groomed monocular Algys and Bobbies, these cricketers to whom age brings golf instead of wisdom, these plutocratic products of “the nail and sarspan business as he got his money by.

    Epistle Dedicatory 1903

  • They are not educated they are only college passmen.

    Man and Superman George Bernard Shaw 1903

  • Well, we two know these transfigured persons, these college passmen, these well groomed monocular Algys and Bobbies, these cricketers to whom age brings golf instead of wisdom, these plutocratic products of "the nail and sarspan business as he got his money by."

    Man and Superman George Bernard Shaw 1903

  • But possibly the need of the world for all-around men and women is even greater than its need for scholars; and in that case we may find justification for both passmen and passwomen.

    Woman in Modern Society Earl Barnes 1898

  • Add to this the freedom and romance of "going to college" and it follows that many young women, with increasing economic freedom, are tempted to go up to the universities just as well-placed young Englishmen go to Cambridge or Oxford as passmen.

    Woman in Modern Society Earl Barnes 1898

  • But this is a case where individual action is out of the question; and if I am asked to name a simple reform which would have an effect, I would suggest that a careful revision of the education of passmen at our Universities is the best and most practical step to take.

    From a College Window Arthur Christopher Benson 1893

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