Definition of "passbook" []

• See bankbook. (noun)
• A book in which a merchant records credit sales. (noun)
• A document formerly issued to a Black person in South Africa and used to enforce certain legal and economic restrictions under the apartheid system. Also called reference book. (noun)

American Heritage(R) Dictionary of the English Language, Fifth Edition. Copyright (c) 2011 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. All rights reserved.

• "Your passbook is checked at the reception desk every time you come; if you're behind schedule for a shot, you go to the Preventive Medicine door and the nurse gives it to you, then and there."
• "Regular savings accounts are sometimes called passbook accounts and usually have low opening deposit requirements."
• "And basically what that court was dealing with, well, let me start by saying during apartheid, all adult men and women were forced to carry something called the passbook ..."