Meaning & use
passion project
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Meaning
nouncountableinformal
A creative or personal undertaking that someone chooses to work on because it deeply interests them, rather than for pay or because it is required.
Grammar: Countable: a passion project, several passion projects.
Patterns
- a passion project of someone
- work on a passion project
Her podcast started as a passion project after work.
The director spent a decade on his passion project, a film about his hometown.
Building the model railway is his weekend passion project.
Word forms
| plural | passion projects |
|---|
Common combinations
- work on a passion project
- I work on a passion project every Sunday.
- personal passion project
- The book is a personal passion project.
- pursue a passion project
- After retiring, he pursued a passion project.
- turn a passion project into
- They turned a passion project into a business.
- side passion project
- The app began as a side passion project.
Synonyms and how they differ
- labor of love
- A labor of love stresses hard work done out of affection, while passion project stresses personal interest.
- pet project
- A pet project can feel less serious and sometimes suggests an obsession of someone in charge.
- side project
- A side project is simply secondary to a main job, and need not be driven by passion.
- hobby
- A hobby is a leisure activity, while a passion project has a specific aim to be completed.
Opposites
Word family
- passion noun
- strong enthusiasm or feeling
- passionate adjective
- showing strong feeling
- project noun
- a planned piece of work
Commonly confused: passion project or pet project?
passion project vs pet project
Both are close, but pet project sometimes has a negative flavor of favoritism, while passion project is positive.
Practice
Maya designs board games in the evenings for fun, with no client. This is her ___.
Choose one answer.
A passion project is done out of personal interest. An assignment or commission is done for someone else.
Make it your own
Write a sentence using “passion project”, then check it and compare it with the examples above.