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. 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: mat, 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.

     I visited two or three friends, then I came back to the house, which I re-entered thanks to a skeleton key.

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.

     The drawing [by Marie Laurencin] is beautiful and extremely moving; have it fitted with a very narrow little frame and a piece of glass. It is ours and it is a small masterpiece. There must be no matte, and the framer must not trim anything, but leave all the empty space visible.

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