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The Shared Roots of License and Licentious
License and licentious come ultimately from the same word in Latin, licentia, whose meanings ranged from "freedom to act" to "unruly behavior, wantonness." The Latin noun was itself derived from the verb licere "to be permitted." Though we are likely to associate license with the card that grants freedom or permission to operate a motor vehicle and licentious with sexual wantonness, in actuality, there is considerable semantic overlap between the two words. Poetic license refers to deviation from a (usually) literary norm for some purposeful effect. A person who takes license with something (or someone) engages in "abusive disregard for rules of personal conduct." Hence, the semantic range of license in English mirrors that of its Latin antecedent, suggesting either permission or transgression, depending upon the context. Licentious, on the other hand, always implies excessive, transgressive freedom, as is true of its immediate Latin source, licentiosus "unrestrained, wanton" (literally, "full of freedom").
Synonyms
Examples of license in a Sentence
Stackcommerce Team (sponsored), PCMAG, 16 Nov. 2024
Lawmakers focused on how Microsoft packaged its products into tiers of service — with advanced security tools attached to only the most expensive license, known to government customers as the G5.
—Renee Dudley, ProPublica, 15 Nov. 2024
Quartz Bot, Quartz, 14 Nov. 2024
Its outputs are viable for commercial use, unlike some other image-generating models that did not license their datasets (and are now facing lawsuits).
—Kate Irwin, PCMAG, 12 Nov. 2024
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Cite this Entry
“License.” Merriam-Webster.com Dictionary, Merriam-Webster, https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/license. Accessed 26 Nov. 2024.
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license
1 of 2 nounlicense
2 of 2 verbMedical Definition
license
noun
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