passe-partout

From French passe-partout.

passe-partout (plural passe-partouts)

1. That by which one can pass anywhere; a safe-conduct.

   Synonym: safe-conduct

2. A master key.

   Synonym: passkey

   • 1998, Paul Cilliers, Complexity and Postmodernism: Understanding Complex Systems, Psychology Press, →ISBN, page 112:

     The traditional (or modern) way of confronting complexity was to find a secure point of reference that could serve as foundation, a passe-partout, a master key from which everything else could be derived.

3. (obsolete) A light picture frame or mat of cardboard, wood, etc., usually put between the picture and the glass, and sometimes serving for several pictures.

   Synonyms: matte, matting

   • 1933, William Crookes, T. A. Malone, George Shadbolt, J. Traill Taylor, William Blanchard Bolton, Thomas Bedding, The British Journal of Photography

     A new introduction for use in conjunction with passe-partout framing is a series of corner pieces which are readily folded round the corners of the finished passe-partout, giving it a certain added effect and slight embellishment.

• passepartout

From French passe-partout.

• IPA^(key): /pɑs.pɑrˈtu/

• Audio

  (file)

• Hyphenation: pas‧se-par‧tout

passe-partout m (plural passe-partouts, diminutive passe-partoutje n)

1. mat (thick paper or paperboard border used to inset and center the contents of a frame)

• passepartout (post-1990 spelling)

• IPA^(key): /pas.paʁ.tu/, /pɑs.paʁ.tu/

• Audio

  (file)

passe-partout m (plural passe-partouts)

1. master key

   Synonyms: passe, rossignol

   • 1849, Alexandre Dumas, “Le Chat, l’huissier et le squelette”, in Les Mille et Un Fantômes:

     Je visitai deux ou trois amis, puis je revins à la maison, où je rentrai, grâce à un passe-partout.

     (please add an English translation of this quote)

2. (art, photography) matte (decorative border around a picture)
   • 1915 August 25, Guillaume Apollinaire, Lettres à Madeleine:

     Ce dessin [de Marie Laurencin] est ravissant et extrêmement touchant, faites-lui mettre une petite baguette très étroite et un verre. Il est à nous et c’est un petit chef-d’œuvre. Il ne faut point de passe-partout et que l’encadreur n’en rogne rien, laissant visible tout le blanc.

     (please add an English translation of this quote)

3. type of brush
4. (dated) Ellipsis of scie passe-partout.; two-man crosscut saw

   Synonym: passant

• “passe-partout”, in Trésor de la langue française informatisé [Digitized Treasury of the French Language], 2012.
• passepartout on the French Wikipedia.Wikipedia ^fr
• passe-partout (encadrement) on the French Wikipedia.Wikipedia ^fr
• scie passe-partout on the French Wikipedia.Wikipedia ^fr

• passepartout

Unadapted borrowing from French passe-partout.

• IPA^(key): /pa.sparˈtu/^**
• Rhymes: -u

passe-partout m (invariable)

1. skeleton key, master key
2. (art) mat (thick paper or paperboard border used to inset and center the contents of a frame)

passe-partout m (definite singular passe-partouten, indefinite plural passe-partouter, definite plural passe-partoutene)

1. form removed with the spelling reform of 2005; superseded by passepartout