Meaning

noun a highway that encircles an urban area so that traffic does not have to pass through the center

noun a surgically created shunt (usually around a damaged part)

noun a conductor having low resistance in parallel with another device to divert a fraction of the current

originFrom Middle English *bypassen, *bipassen (suggested by past participle by-past, bipast), equivalent to by- + pass.

Etymology from Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 3.0