why do we say 'passed'?

I rather like the very old expression ‘gathered to his fathers’ - only seen - at least by me - in Victorian novels - but OTOH I’ve yet to read of a woman being ‘gathered to her mothers’.

In my family it has always been ‘died’ - passed and passed away do give me a slight internal cringe. A close foreign friend always says ‘passed away’. I dare say she ‘caught’ it from her husband, who always said it, and was gathered to his fathers a few years ago now.

Whatever term/ expression is used by the a bereaved person is the right one.
After a bereavement, the person/family have enough to deal with without the added concern/worry that they maybe offending others by using the wrong phrase/ word.

By using the term A Loss or indeed Passed away, it is quite obvious what they mean .
When I witnessed both my mother and father draw their last breath, they had passed away and were no longer present in this world

The hospice and staff used the term Loss .

Personally I would say passed , I'm a Christian and believe I will pass over, but am not offended if you say died,kicked the bucket, moved on, I would take the lead of the person bereaved, and yes for me my body will have died but my soul goes on, to each their own

You have to die for your soul to pass on .

The weirdest thing I read recently. was of someone who had been murdered in a fight and the family posted that he had 'passed on' in their tribute. I can see that they might have been too traumatised to say he had been murdered or killed, but passed on? With all its implications of someone gently passing from this world to the next?

My grandmother used to say he or she ''got away''when someone died.
I also remember such phrases as popped their clogs, snuffed it, and kicked the bucket.All from my youth.
I am a catholic and know a lot of the religious ways of describing death.

I’ve noticed that it’s only people/ families who hold religious beliefs who say a person has passed away instead of died.

I'm a Catholic and use the term, died, dead, death. At my late husband's funeral, the priest officiating also used those words.
It doesn't bother me if others prefer or feel more comfortable saying passed or any other versions.
My grandmother always said, "passed away."
Each to their own.

Message withdrawn at poster's request.

They tried to tell me to use " passed peacefully " when my wife died, and I suppose tried to soften the blow. I changed the wording to "died" which was true. Walking round the local cemetry, reading gravestones, was amazed at the variety of options of the way they "left"

I said died when it was my daughter then there can be no confusion, my friend phoned me sometime ago and said she had lost her mum……. Well I will say no more than I put my foot in it with my response.

I don’t use it, and I don’t like it, but to a lot of people it evidently sounds less awful than ‘died’.

I will admit to liking good old Victorian expressions like, ‘He was gathered to his fathers,’ - not that I’d ever use it!

Must say I was surprised at the Telegraph’s online headline yesterday - saying the Queen had ‘passed away’. I wouldn’t have thought their editorial staff would shrink from the ‘d’ word.

I suppose that "passed" suggests that the deceased has gone to another place, whereas "died" is final. I think that the former is rather prissy or mealy mouthed as though the speaker is reluctant to admit the reality to themself.

Passed from one state to another - life to death, perfectly acceptable and grammatically correct term.

Barmyoldbat
My late mother in law had a friend who would use that expression.
One year she lost 4 people. It nearly got to the dark humour stage.

I would never say anything other than “dead” or “died.” All the passing away kind of expressions are twee and, in my view, rather inappropriate.

MerylStreep