A skeleton key (also known as a passingkey) is either a key that has been altered in such a way as to bypass the wards placed inside a warded lock, or a card that contains information necessary to open locks for a certain area like a hotel etc., or an American term for a lever or "bit" type key. The term derives from the fact that the key has been reduced to its essential parts.
The term "skeleton key", in a more general sense, is also sometimes used in reference to key or similar object capable of opening any lock regardless of make or type. The term refers to the skeletal structure which can bypass all locks. The term is also often misapplied to refer to any antique key.
Read more about Skeleton Key: Warded Locks, Lever Lock Keys, Basketball Analogy, See Also
Famous quotes containing the words skeleton and/or key:
“The bone-frame was made for
no such shock knit within terror,
yet the skeleton stood up to it:
the flesh? it was melted away,
the heart burnt out, dead ember,
tendons, muscles shattered, outer husk dismembered....”
—Hilda Doolittle (1886–1961)
“Now narrow minds can develop as well through persecution as through benevolence; they can assure themselves of their power by tyrannizing cruelly or beneficently over others; they go the way their nature guides them. Add to this the guidance of interest, and you will have the key to most social riddles.”
—Honoré De Balzac (1799–1850)