pass muster


Meet a required standard, as in That yard cleanup won't pass muster with Mom. This expression originally meant “to undergo a military review without censure,” muster referring to an assembling of troops for inspection or a similar purpose. [Late 1500s]

Words Nearby pass muster

The American Heritage® Idioms Dictionary Copyright © 2002, 2001, 1995 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company.

How to use pass muster in a sentence

  • It was, compared with the others, pretty good; but needed that comparison to make it pass muster.

    Letters from Palestine | J. D. Paxton
  • A truly impressive spectacle would pass muster for the promised "field of May," and profoundly affect the minds of all present.

    The Life of Napoleon Bonaparte | William Milligan Sloane
  • It would as readily pass muster for anxiety that he should have remembered something as that he shouldn't.

    Somehow Good | William de Morgan