approval

American  

[uh-proo-vuhl] / əˈpru vəl /

noun

approvals plural

1. the act of approving; approbation.

2. formal permission or sanction.

3. Philately. one of a group of selected stamps sent by a dealer to a prospective customer for examination and either purchase or return.

---

idioms

1. on approval, without obligation to buy unless satisfactory to the customer upon trial or examination and, otherwise, returnable.

   We ship merchandise on approval.

approval British  

/ əˈpruːvəl /

noun

1. the act of approving

2. formal agreement; sanction

3. a favourable opinion; commendation

4. (of articles for sale) for examination with an option to buy or return

---

approval More Idioms  

1. see on approval; seal of approval.

---

Other Word Forms

Derived Forms

• nonapproval
  noun
• preapproval
  noun
• reapproval
  noun
• self-approval
  noun
• proapproval
  adjective

Inflected Forms

Nouns

• approvals
  plural

Etymology

Origin of approval

First recorded in 1680–90; approve + -al ²

Explanation

Approval is a formal agreement. It's probably not a good idea to mail the invitations for your beach party until you've gotten official approval for the enormous bonfire you're planning to light. Building designs, budgets, grant applications — these all require official approval before they can be put into effect. You can also use the word approval to talk about less formal permission, like a teacher's approval of your plan to buy pizza for the whole class. Approval also means the belief that something is good, like your approval of your neighbor's purple house. Until 1800, it was much more common for people to use the word approvance to mean the same thing.

Example Sentences

See Examples For:

approval approvals

Welcome to this week’s edition of the Surge, Slate’s weekly politics newsletter for closely monitoring the horse race between Trump’s approval rating and the Washington, D.C., temperature in Celsius.

From Slate ● Aug. 1, 2026

Over the years, the owners of PS — now Groupe ADP and before that a private equity firm — failed to get the proper city approval for the sales, De Becker’s attorneys have alleged.

From Los Angeles Times ● Jul. 31, 2026

Trading of Replimune stock was halted on Thursday, a regular practice around these panels, where outside experts make recommendations to the FDA about drugs they are considering for approval.

From The Wall Street Journal ● Jul. 30, 2026

Experts have cast doubt on the legal feasibility of the emergency decree, which is already in force but requires parliamentary approval to remain law.

From Barron's ● Jul. 30, 2026

He was having a very good time, as usual, and his students smiled back at him in approval.

From "Mountains Beyond Mountains" by Tracy Kidder and Michael French

But O’Leary is secretive about exactly when passengers might see the aircraft at their gates, largely because that will depend on the FAA’s safety approvals.

From The Wall Street Journal ● Jul. 29, 2026

Waiving such environmental protection requirements would allow approvals to be expedited "to launch rockets, reenter spacecraft, and operate launch and reentry sites," the FAA said.

From Barron's ● Jul. 28, 2026

Daera has said a scheme of financial assistance has been developed and the "necessary approvals for the proposal are currently being pursued".

From BBC ● Jul. 27, 2026

Paramount has pointed to those approvals as proof that the law is on its side.

From Los Angeles Times ● Jul. 27, 2026

Lawrence pried the necessary salary and staff approvals from Sproul, and committed himself personally to finding money to build Seaborg’s hot lab and reactor.

From "Big Science" by Michael Hiltzik

Related Words

• blessing
• confirmation
• consent
• endorsement
• go ahead
• green light
• license
• mandate
• permission
• ratification
• recommendation
• sanction
• support