licenses

1. 1
   more than onenoun

   Plural of license.

   The agency issued thousands of fishing licenses before the season opened.

   All commercial pilots must renew their licenses at regular intervals.

   Note

   The plural shares its spelling with the verb form. In American spelling, license is both noun and verb, while British usage keeps licences for the noun. The plural fits the countable uses: permits, software terms, and the driver's licenses that the bare word often stands for. Only the sentence shows which is meant: the licenses expired, but the state licenses drivers.

2. 2
   present tenseverb

   Third-person singular simple present indicative of license.

   The board licenses physicians only after they pass the required exams.

   The studio licenses its characters to toy manufacturers each year.

   Note

   Here the word is a transitive verb that needs an object. An authority licenses a person, or an owner licenses a product to someone else. In business it can point both ways: a studio licenses its characters out, but a company that licenses software is usually paying to use it. The spelling matches the plural noun, so the grammar of the sentence has to tell them apart.

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