visa
Pluralvisas
Pluralvisas
- 1An official permit to enter and leave a country, usually issued by the authorities of the country being visited.
The embassy issued her a six-month student visa within two weeks.
Travelers without valid visas were turned away at the border.
Similarpermit
Note
Behind the word is a piece of paper that has been seen: Latin charta vīsa, from vidēre 'to see', the root shared with vision, video and vista. When it entered English in 1831, it named the official signature or endorsement on a passport. Today it names the permit itself. It works freely before other nouns (visa holders, visa regulations, a visa freeze), and a qualifier names its purpose: tourist, business, transit.
- 2To endorse a passport or similar document, marking it as officially approved for travel.
Consular officials visa travel documents only after verifying each applicant's identity.
"Let me tell you that I am going to spit into that coffee! Yes, and if you do not get me my passport visaed this very minute, I shall take it to Monsignor myself.”
1867, Fyodor Dostoyevsky, The GamblerNote
The verb keeps the noun's final vowel and simply adds its endings: visas, visaing, visaed. It now sounds dated. In C. J. Hogarth's translation of Dostoyevsky's The Gambler, a character insists on getting "my passport visaed this very minute." The document is the object. Modern usage usually turns to the noun instead, so a traveler gets a visa rather than having a passport visaed.
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Origin
Recorded from 1831 meaning an official signature or endorsement on a passport, it comes from French visa, which derives from Latin charta vīsa ("paper that has been seen"), from the feminine perfect passive of Latin vidēre ("to see").