Definitions

from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 5th Edition.

  • noun The act of permitting, especially in giving formal consent; authorization.
  • noun An authorization to do something, as to quote from a book under copyright.

from The Century Dictionary.

  • noun The act of permitting or allowing; license or liberty granted; consent; leave; allowance.

from the GNU version of the Collaborative International Dictionary of English.

  • noun The act of permitting or allowing; formal consent; authorization; leave; license or liberty granted.

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License.

  • noun authorisation; consent (especially formal consent from someone in authority)
  • noun The act of permitting
  • noun computing flags or access control lists pertaining to a file that dictate who can access it, and how.

from WordNet 3.0 Copyright 2006 by Princeton University. All rights reserved.

  • noun approval to do something
  • noun the act of giving a formal (usually written) authorization

Etymologies

from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 4th Edition

[Middle English, from Old French, from Latin permissiō, permissiōn-, from permissus, past participle of permittere, to permit; see permit.]

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License

From Middle English permitten, from Middle French permettre, from Latin permittere ("to give up", "to allow").

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Examples

  • Time to phase it out so that the Government of Israel can defend its people without having to obtain permission from the US president.

    Matthew Yglesias » Endgame 2010

  • Time to phase it out so that the Government of Israel can defend its people without having to obtain permission from the US president.

    Matthew Yglesias » Endgame 2010

  • “Time to phase it out so that the Government of Israel can defend its people without having to obtain permission from the US president.” (slc)

    Matthew Yglesias » Endgame 2010

  • Thanks to his enlightening work, I now realize that I need to first get a large group of ethnically, racially and religiously homogenous people together to go to TNR offices to obtain permission from the editors that we call ourselves “a nation” before we can have any human rights. saifedean Says:

    Matthew Yglesias » Bye, Bye Nationhood 2007

  • Foreigners planning to marry Mexicans must first obtain permission from the Secretaria de Gobernación Office of Migración, providing the same documentation as well as a fee of $1723 pesos (about $191 USD).

    It Takes More Than "I Do" To Marry In Mexico 2007

  • Foreigners planning to marry Mexicans must first obtain permission from the Secretaria de Gobernación Office of Migración, providing the same documentation as well as a fee of $1723 pesos (about $191 USD).

    It Takes More Than "I Do" To Marry In Mexico 2007

  • Specter's proposal would bring the four-year-old NSA program under the authority of the court created by the 1978 Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act. The federal government would have to obtain permission from a secret court to continue a controversial form of surveillance, which the National Security Agency now conducts without warrants.

    Balkinization 2006

  • The federal government would have to obtain permission from a secret court to continue a controversial form of surveillance, which the National Security Agency now conducts without warrants, under a bill being proposed by Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Arlen Specter (R-Pa.).

    Balkinization 2006

  • "The federal government would have to obtain permission from a secret court to continue a controversial form of surveillance, which the National Security Agency now conducts without warrants, under a bill being proposed by Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Arlen Specter (R-Pa.)." ...

    This Law Sounds Oddly Familiar 2006

  • The state forced me to obtain permission from the man that deserted me and my three daughters.

    Think Progress » Novak Debunks Himself 2005

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