licence

[ lahy-suhns ]

/ ˈlaɪ səns /

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noun

Chiefly British. a variant of license.

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His boss, whom he admires, is waiting to meet with him about the big project.

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Dictionary.com Unabridged Based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2023

How to use licence in a sentence

Yet it is not just the acts of brutality that compel his attention: it is the ways in which they are licenced by authority.
Walking In The Footsteps Of W.G. Sebald, Hiker, Novelist, Strange Genius|Edward Platt|June 5, 2014|DAILY BEAST
But you played for gain, and that was a licenced thieving; and that was a backsliding; and there will have to be a climbing up.
The Amazing Marriage, Complete|George Meredith
The hunters rarely climbed up to it, and their wild and licenced converse was unheard for the time.
The Scalp Hunters|Mayne Reid
Besides being confessedly an art-form, duly licenced to lie, it was apt to be misunderstood.
Young Lives|Richard Le Gallienne

After that he was become a moonke in the monasterie Moonks licenced to drinke wine.
Holinshed Chronicles, Volume I, Complete|Raphaell Holinshed
With us, no shop-boy or apprentice would take his sweetheart to a public hop at any of the licenced music-houses.
Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, No. CCCXXIX.|Various

British Dictionary definitions for licence

licence

US license

/ (ˈlaɪsəns) /

noun

a certificate, tag, document, etc, giving official permission to do something

formal permission or exemption

liberty of action or thought; freedom

intentional disregard of or deviation from conventional rules to achieve a certain effectpoetic licence

excessive freedom

licentiousness

Word Origin for licence

C14: via Old French and Medieval Latin licentia permission, from Latin: freedom, from licet it is allowed

Collins English Dictionary - Complete & Unabridged 2012 Digital Edition © William Collins Sons & Co. Ltd. 1979, 1986 © HarperCollins Publishers 1998, 2000, 2003, 2005, 2006, 2007, 2009, 2012