passenger

The word 'passenger' has a journey of its own. It entered Middle English from the Old French 'passagier', meaning 'passer-by' or 'traveler', which itself was derived from 'passage' with the agent suffix. The core root, 'pass', traces back to the Latin 'passus', meaning a step or pace, the fundamental unit of movement. Over time, the meaning shifted from a general 'one who passes' to its modern, more specific sense of a person conveyed by a vehicle. The now-obscure suffix '-enger' is a fossilized form, a remnant of the word's path through French into English, where it solidified into its current spelling and meaning.

Structure: pass (to go, to pass) + enger (agent suffix) 'pass' originates from Old French 'passer', from Latin 'passus' (step, pace). In this word, it carries the sense of traveling or going. 'enger' is an obsolete agent suffix from Old French '-eour', '-eor', from Latin '-ator', used to form nouns indicating a person who performs an action.