Password

How to spell password

8 letters · 2 syllables

How to pronounce password

Say the part in capitals loudest.

What does password mean?

1. nounA secret word or string of characters that grants access to a system, account, or place.

Password in a sentence

• She reset her password after the suspicious login alert.

• The bank advised customers never to share a password by email.

Where does password come from?

Language of origin: Germanic

This is a transparent English compound, formed simply by joining 'pass' and 'word'. The 'pass' element comes through Old French 'passer' from the Latin 'passus', meaning a step or pace, and by extension the idea of moving through a barrier. 'Word' is a thoroughly native Germanic term, descending from Old English 'word' with cousins across the Germanic languages. The combined sense, a secret term that lets you pass a sentry or gate, appears in military use from the early 1800s, when guards challenged anyone approaching and demanded the agreed word. With the rise of computing in the twentieth century the meaning broadened naturally to any secret string that grants access to a system, and because both halves are common everyday words the spelling holds no real surprises.

How the word is built

• pass (to go through)
• word (a spoken or written term)