file past

file past (someone or something)

To move past someone or something in a line. Once all of the third-graders filed past, the fourth-graders followed them out of the church. The bridal party filed past the applauding guests.
See also: file, past
Farlex Dictionary of Idioms.

file past (someone or something)

[for a line or procession] to move past someone or something. The people filed past the coffin, looking sadly at the still figure inside. As they filed past, some wept openly.
See also: file, past
McGraw-Hill Dictionary of American Idioms and Phrasal Verbs.
See also:
  • file past (someone or something)
  • look past
  • sneak past (someone or something)
  • brush past (someone or something)
  • blow past (someone or something)
  • reach past (someone or something)
  • knew it was coming
  • know (something) is coming
  • settle an old score (with someone)
  • settle a score
References in classic literature
"What a fine trade is that of king!" said this man, so completely absorbed in contemplation that he stopped in the middle of his road, leaving the cortege to file past. "Now, there is, in good truth, a prince all bespangled over with gold and diamonds, enamelled with flowers like a spring meadow; he is about to plunge his empty hands into the immense coffer in which his now faithful -- but so lately unfaithful -- subjects have amassed one or two cartloads of ingots of gold.
Persons from the inky fraternity, including the management and staff of Atinka Media Village and sympathisers, took turns to file past the remains of the late Sasu to pay their last respects.
A specialist recovery vehicle was needed to assist the crane but couldn't reach the scene for nearly two hours, forcing northbound traffic to slowly file past the breakdown until it was finally cleared shortly after 9.30am.
Zenani Dlamini was among the first of thousands of mourners who queued - many of them for hours - to file past her father's glasstopped coffin yesterday.
| SAFELY GATHERED IN: Youngsters file past all the harvest festival produce at Crosland Moor Voluntary School in 1962.
PUPILS arriving to collect their GCSE results at Barry Comprehensive yesterday had to file past a film crew making Welsh language television series Gwaith/Cartref.
Swisher Hygiene, which is struggling to file past financial reports with the U.S.
HOMAGE: Pople file past the relic in the Metropolitan cathedral.
Almost half of the surveyed companies self-insure, and 8 percent have moved to self-insurance within file past five years.
I will miss the formality of standing in the corridor head bowed as their Lordships file past into the upper chamber.
As many as 12,000 people waited to file past his closed coffin.
Peter's, mourners in the thousands filed by it, and some had to wait as long as twenty hours to file past the bier and say a brief prayer.
As tens of thousands file past John Paul's bier, the members of the College of Cardinals are scheduled to hold their first meeting on the arrangements of the pope's funeral and burial before they get ready to choose who will inherit his mantle.
Since Monday about 100,000 people visited the library in the Simi Valley to file past the coffin and pay their respects.
Moore has spent file past decade rescuing and preserving work by artists who passed away because of AIDS, and the book benefits from his broad taste in and intimacy with art that captured the bygone era of sex without consequences.