# carte blanche

Pronunciation: US say "kahrt BLAHNSH" /(ˈ)kɑɹt ˈblɑnʃ/; UK say "kaht BLAHNSH" /ˌkɑːt ˈblɑːnʃ/

## Noun

1. Unlimited power to act as one judges best, with no restrictions placed on one's authority.
   - Simple: Full power to decide and act however you think best, with no limits.
   - _The owners gave the new chef carte blanche to rebuild the menu from scratch._
   - _With carte blanche from the board, the incoming director closed three failing branches in her first month._
2. A blank sheet of paper, already signed by someone in authority, that is handed to another person to fill in however they please.
   - Simple: A blank paper that someone in charge signs and gives to another person to fill in as they wish.
   - _Before the envoy sailed, the king signed a carte blanche so that the treaty's terms could be written in above his name later._
   - _Among the general's papers, archivists found two cartes blanches, each signed by the emperor and never filled in._

## Adverb

3. As one undivided group, with no regard for the differences between the individual members or cases.
   - Simple: All together as one group, without paying attention to any differences inside the group.
   - _The committee rejected the grant applications carte blanche, without reading a single proposal on its merits._
   - _For decades, women were excluded carte blanche from the club's board, whatever their qualifications._

## Other meanings

- (noun) In card games, a hand that contains no court cards, meaning no kings, queens, or jacks.
- (noun) A charge card, no longer in use, that was issued by Diners Club International.

## Origin

Borrowed from French "carte blanche", which refers to a blank or white card.

Source: DictionaryAI, https://dictionaryai.com/define/carte-blanche (written from Wiktionary data, CC BY-SA 4.0: https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/).