license

Plurallicenses

Formslicenses, licensing, licensed

1. 1
   legal permissionnouncountable

   An official document that gives someone legal permission to do something; a permit.

   You need a license to operate a commercial vehicle.

   The bar lost its license after repeated violations.

   Similarpermit, authorization, certificate, warrant

   Note

   Behind the document is a Latin verb, licere, "to be allowed": a license is an allowance written down and made official. It is usually countable (a fishing license, two licenses), but it also works as a mass noun for permission held on official terms. Goods are made under license, and a bar can serve without license. The verb came into English by its own separate route, from Medieval Latin licentio.

   The parts are manufactured under license by a firm overseas.

   The club was fined for selling alcohol without license.

2. 2
   usage termsnouncountable

   The legal terms that set out how someone is allowed to use a product, especially software.

   The software license prohibits copying the program for others.

   Each license grants the user a single seat for one year.

   Similaragreement

3. 3
   issue permitsverbtransitive

   To grant someone official authorization to do something.

   The state agency licenses physicians after they complete their exams.

   Authorities license only those operators who meet strict standards.

   Similarcertify, accredit, authorize, permit

   Oppositeban, prohibit, forbid, disqualify

   Note

   The passive carries much of the weight. Someone is licensed to practice law, with to and an infinitive naming the permitted activity. The verb came into English by its own route, through Old French licencier, rather than being made directly from the noun. The active form, with an authority as subject, appears when the act of granting is the point.

4. 4
   driver's cardnouncountableabbreviationellipsis

   Ellipsis of driver's license.

   Keep your license in your wallet when you drive.

   He left his license at home and had to turn the car around.

   Note

   Context does the work of the missing word. An unqualified license, as in "show my license," is understood as the driver's license, because that card also serves as everyday identification. The full compound comes back whenever another kind of license could be meant.

5. 5
   let others useverbtransitive

   To grant formal authorization for someone to use something, especially a piece of intellectual property.

   The studio licensed the characters to a toy manufacturer.

   Developers license their software to large companies under strict terms.

   Similarlease, franchise

   Note

   The owner is the subject and the intellectual property is the object. A studio licenses its characters to a manufacturer, and a project can be licensed under a set of terms, as Wikipedia was under the GFDL. Direction matters, because the acquiring meaning uses the same verb from the other side of the deal. In this sense, to or under follows the object, and ownership stays where it was.

6. 6
   verbtransitive

   To obtain formal authorization to use something, usually by paying for it.

   The startup licensed the patented design before launching its product.

   Broadcasters license footage from news agencies for a yearly fee.

   Similaracquire, lease, rent

   Note

   The same transaction seen from the buyer's side: filmmakers license songs for a soundtrack, and Microsoft licensed technology from ScanSoft. The preposition tells the two apart. License from marks acquiring, while license to marks the granting meaning. Payment is usually implied, and what the buyer gets is the right to use the work, not ownership of it.

7. 7
   bending rulesnoununcountable

   The freedom to deliberately depart from normal rules or practices, especially in behavior or speech.

   The director took considerable license in adapting the historical events.

   Storytellers enjoy a certain license to embellish their accounts.

   Similarlatitude, freedom, leeway, liberty

   Oppositerestraint, constraint

   Note

   Permission turned toward craft: the freedom a writer, director or speaker claims to bend fact or form on purpose. It is usually taken, as when an author takes license to include events that never happened. It settles into the fixed pairs poetic license and artistic license. Unlike the excessive-freedom meaning, it carries no blame, because the deviation is deliberate and accepted.

8. 8
   allowverbtransitive

   To give someone permission or freedom to act; to allow or accept.

   The policy licenses employees to make small decisions on their own.

   The new guidelines license teachers to adapt the curriculum freely.

   Similarallow, permit, authorize, empower, entitle

   Oppositeforbid, prohibit, bar, prevent

   Note

   A looser, social permission, where the grant is acceptance rather than paperwork. In Little Dorrit, Dickens has Society say of the Merdles, "Let us license them; let us know them." To license someone there is to admit them. In current prose the verb usually names what a rule frees people to do: a policy licenses employees to decide.

9. 9
   too much freedomnoununcountable

   Excessive freedom; a lack of proper restraint.

   The regime's collapse gave way to widespread license and lawlessness.

   He mistook freedom for license and ignored every limit.

   Similarpermissiveness, excess, abandon, anarchy, indiscipline

   Oppositerestraint, discipline, self-control, order

   Note

   The word turns moral here, and its partner is liberty: liberty is freedom within bounds, license is freedom without them. Will Durant's The Story of Civilization puts the contrast in one line: "When liberty becomes license dictatorship is near." Tennyson's In Memoriam (1850) grants this license to the beast, "Unfetter'd by the sense of crime," a creature with no conscience to restrain it.

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