permission

Pluralpermissions (some meanings)

Formspermissions, permissioning, permissioned

1. 1
   noununcountable

   Formal consent or authorization, especially from someone in a position of authority.

   The reporter sought permission to enter the restricted area.

   Building work cannot begin without written permission from the city council.

   Similarconsent, authorization, approval, clearance, leave

   Oppositerefusal, prohibition, denial

   Note

   A borrowing that pushed aside a native word: it came through Middle French from Latin permissiō and largely replaced English leave, from Old English lēaf, which itself meant 'permission'. It is usually uncountable: you ask for, seek or grant permission. The thing allowed follows as a to-infinitive, as in permission to enter or permission to execute this traitor. It can also be counted when separate grants are meant.

2. 2
   noununcountable

   The act of allowing someone to do something, or of allowing something to take place.

   In this office, permission means a manager initialing the bottom of the request form.

   Critics blamed the crisis on the regulators' habit of easy permission instead of careful review.

   Similarapproval, authorization, sanction

   Oppositerefusal, prohibition

3. 3
   nounusually plural

   Settings or access rules attached to a computer file that determine who can use it and in what ways.

   Like a guest list that says who may enter a room and what they are allowed to touch.

   The administrator adjusted the permission on the shared folder to block edits.

   Without the correct permission, the script cannot write to the directory.

   Similaraccess, privilege, right

   Note

   On a computer the word stops meaning a one-off yes and becomes a standing setting. It covers the flags or access-control list entries stored with a file or directory, which specify which users or groups may read, write or execute it. These are changed with a command such as chmod. Unlike the everyday sense of consent, what is granted here is a rule enforced by the system rather than a person's word.

4. 4
   verbtransitive

   To grant or obtain official authorization for an action or request.

   The bank needs to permission every transaction above a set limit.

   Administrators permission new devices before connecting them to the network.

   Similarauthorize, approve, clear, sanction

   Oppositedeny, reject

   Note

   A verb made from the noun, and a relatively recent one. Mary Ellen Lepionka's Writing and Developing Your College Textbook (2003) notes that photographs 'must be permissioned and credited'. It is a working professional's word, at home in publishing, finance and access management, and it sits most naturally in the passive. In general prose, permit or authorize usually reads more smoothly.

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