Jean Passepartout is a fictional character in Jules Verne's novel Around the World in Eighty Days, published in 1873. He is the French valet of the novel's English main character, Phileas Fogg. His surname translates literally to "goes everywhere", but “passepartout” is also an idiom meaning "skeleton key" in French. It can also be understood as a play on the English word passport—or its French equivalent passeport.

A valet or varlet is a male servant who serves as personal attendant to his employer. In the Middle Ages and Ancien Régime, valet de chambre was a role for junior courtiers and specialists such as artists in a royal court, but the term "valet" by itself most often refers to a normal servant responsible for the clothes and personal belongings of an employer, and making minor arrangements. In the United States, the term most often refers to a parking valet, and the role is often confused with a butler.