in passing
prep_phrase1
Incidentally; as a brief diversion from another topic etc.
- We mostly talked about his mother's illness, but he told me in passing that he'd won a small prize in the lottery.
- Did she mention my name just in passing?1968, “Did She Mention My Name?”, performed by Gordon Lightfoot:
1 more example
- And that number, 400 million[subscribers], does not account for the people who watch MrBeast’s videos in passing, or who are aware of his cultural presence because of their children, or who just sort of know who he is but don’t have any intricate awareness as to why he is famous.2025 June 3, Mark O’Connell, “‘The Mozart of the attention economy’: why MrBeast is the world’s biggest YouTube star”, in The Guardian, archived from the original on 07 Jun 2025:
- Synonyms
- en passant