Also spelled passer-by
noun
Freq #40461
Meanings
-
1
noun
a person who happens to be walking or traveling past a place
A passerby noticed the smoke and called the fire department.
Thesaurus
Synonyms
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pedestrian
Etymology
A compound of passer ("one who passes") + by. Because by functions as the following complement, the ordinary plural is passersby rather than passerbys. Passer-by is an established hyphenated spelling.