Passar (To Pass/Spend Time) — Full Conjugation

Passar is one of Portuguese's most polysemous verbs — a single verb that stretches across dozens of meanings, from literal (passing by a café) to temporal (spending the weekend) to idiomatic (o que se passa? — what's going on?). Even native speakers often don't notice how many ways they use it in a single day: they pass people, pass time, pass an iron over a shirt, pass a prescription, pass by someone's house, and, in the reflexive, watch things pass (passam-se coisas estranhas aqui — strange things go on here).

Mechanically, passar is fully regular as a first-conjugation (-ar) verb. The only things worth flagging are (a) the EP 1pl preterite passámos (with acute, distinguishing it from the present passamos) and (b) a whole family of idiomatic constructions that foreigners usually have to learn as set phrases.

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Present indicative — presente do indicativo

Imperfect indicative — pretérito imperfeito

Preterite indicative — pretérito perfeito simples

The 1pl form passámos carries an acute accent in European Portuguese, distinguishing it from the present passamos. This is one of the few places where the EP spelling reform of 1990 left an accent standing.

In Brazilian Portuguese the accent is dropped and both tenses are written passamos. In EP, passámos remains standard.

Pluperfect indicative, simple — pretérito mais-que-perfeito simples

Pluperfect indicative, compound — pretérito mais-que-perfeito composto

Present perfect — pretérito perfeito composto

The everyday greeting como tens passado? / como tem passado? — how have you been (doing) lately? — uses exactly this tense. Note how the English present perfect is a good match here, precisely because it covers a stretch of time reaching the present.

Simple future — futuro do indicativo simples

Future perfect — futuro perfeito

Conditional — condicional

Conditional perfect — condicional composto

Present subjunctive — presente do conjuntivo

Imperfect subjunctive — imperfeito do conjuntivo

Future subjunctive — futuro do conjuntivo

Present perfect subjunctive — pretérito perfeito do conjuntivo

Pluperfect subjunctive — pretérito mais-que-perfeito do conjuntivo

Future perfect subjunctive — futuro perfeito do conjuntivo

Imperative — imperativo

Affirmative:

Negative:

Personal infinitive — infinitivo pessoal

Compound personal infinitive — infinitivo pessoal composto

The many senses of passar

It helps to group the senses by construction. Here are the eight most productive ones.

1. passar — to pass, to go by (spatial)

2. passar por — to go via, to drop by, to pass by

Metaphorically, passar por also means to go through an experience: passei por um mau momento (I went through a rough patch).

3. passar + tempo — to spend time

Directly transitive. The object is a stretch of time.

4. passar-se — to happen, to go on

The reflexive passar-se is Portuguese's go-to verb for what is happening. The greeting o que se passa? or o que é que se passa? is everywhere.

5. passar a ferro — to iron (clothes)

Literally to run an iron over. The object of the ironing (the shirt, the sheet) comes after.

6. passar uma receita — to write a prescription

Used of doctors. Parallel expressions exist: passar um cheque (write a cheque), passar um recibo (issue a receipt).

7. passar a limpo — to write out a clean copy

From the days of handwritten drafts: you passed your notes from the rough version (passar do sujo) to the clean one (passar a limpo). Still used figuratively: vamos passar isto a limpo — let's get this straight / let's sort this out.

8. passar a + infinitive — to start doing

A change-of-state construction: from now on, you do X. Useful, subtle, often missed.

More idioms worth knowing

• passar dos limites — to cross the line, to go too far
• passar pela cabeça — to occur to (nem me passou pela cabeça — it didn't even cross my mind)
• passar fome/frio/mal — to go hungry / cold / through a hard time
• passar bem/mal — to be well / unwell (also: como passaste? — how have you been?)
• passar à frente — to skip ahead
• passar a palavra — to spread the word
• passar-se dos carretos / passar-se da cabeça — to lose it, to go crazy (informal)

Example sentences in context

Common mistakes

Key takeaways

• Passar is fully regular but extremely polysemous. The verb form is easy; the constructions are what you must learn.
• The EP 1pl preterite is passámos with an acute accent, distinct from the present passamos.
• Core meanings group around four axes: spatial (passar por), temporal (passar o dia), transitive action (passar a ferro, passar uma receita), and reflexive (passar-se = to happen).
• Passar a + infinitive expresses a change of state: passar a trabalhar em casa = to start working from home.
• Como tens passado? is the everyday how have you been?. The present perfect fits perfectly here — both languages reach back from the present.
• Don't use gastar for time — gastar is for money and physical wear. For time, use passar.
• The greeting o que se passa? requires the reflexive pronoun. Without it, the sentence is ungrammatical.