Meaning & use
Passepartout
Last updated
A cardboard or paper mat used to mount and frame a picture, or, more generally, a master key that opens many locks.
See it in a sentence
The photograph was displayed in a simple black passepartout before framing.
The hotel manager carried a passepartout that unlocked every room in the building.
A note on using this word
From French, meaning literally "passes everywhere," the word was famously used as the name of Phileas Fogg's resourceful servant in Jules Verne's Around the World in Eighty Days.
Words with a similar meaning
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Another way to use it
2. noun
A master key that opens a number of different locks.
The caretaker used a passepartout to enter any room in the old building.
Make it your own
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