licit

Etymology

It is borrowed from Latin licitus (“permitted, lawful”), either directly or through Middle French licite,^[2][3] the past participle of liceō (“to be allowed, to be lawful”).^[2][4][5][6] The Oxford Dictionary of English, Hoad and Etymonline take it from Latin,^[7][5][4] while the American Heritage Dictionary and Merriam-Webster Unabridged give the French form as the source.^[8][6] Dictionary.com notes that it replaced an earlier Middle English licite taken from Middle French.^[9] The Anglo-Norman licite (“lawful, permitted by law”) is recorded from 1411.^[10] The Latin verb is also the source of license.^[4][6]

Earliest recorded meaning

Allowable, permitted, lawful: 1483, in Caxton's translation of Cato.^[2][3]

Semantic evolution

The word has kept its single sense since the 15th century.^[2][11] Etymonline notes that in early 19th-century England it was condemned, wrongly, as an Americanism.^[4] Bartlett (1848) records that a review in the Monthly Anthology of 1804 had rejected it in the works of David Humphreys, saying that there was no such word and that the author could not be allowed to coin language;^[12] Bartlett adds that it was by then in all the later English dictionaries.^[12] The adverb licitly dates from the late 15th century and the noun licitness from the late 18th.^[11]

Timeline

• 1483 – allowable, permitted, lawful.^[2][3]

Meanings

Adjective

1. Allowed by law or rule; lawful or permitted: the licit trade in timber.^{[6][13][14][2]}

Word family

• licitly
• licitness

Related words

• license
• illicit
• leisure

Usage notes

Collins calls licit a less common word for lawful.^[14] Wiktionary notes that in canon law licit and valid are distinct: a marriage, for instance, may be licit and yet invalid, or the reverse.^[1]

References

1. ^ a b Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b c d e f Oxford English Dictionary Online (accessed March 2026), Oxford: Oxford University Press
3. ^ a b c Barnhart, Robert K. (1988), The Barnhart Dictionary of Etymology
4. ^ a b c d Harper, Douglas. Online Etymology Dictionary, https://www.etymonline.com
5. ^ a b Hoad, T. F., ed. (1986), The Concise Oxford Dictionary of English Etymology, Oxford: Clarendon Press
6. ^ a b c d Merriam-Webster Unabridged Dictionary (2024), online ed., Springfield, Mass.: Merriam-Webster
7. ^ Stevenson, Angus, ed. (2010), Oxford Dictionary of English, 3rd ed., Oxford: Oxford University Press
8. ^ The American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language (online 2024), 5th ed., Boston: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt
9. ^ Dictionary.com Unabridged (2016), based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, New York: Random House
10. ^ Anglo-Norman Dictionary (AND2), Aberystwyth University, anglo-norman.net (2nd ed., 2005–)
11. ^ a b Shorter Oxford English Dictionary on Historical Principles (2002), 5th ed., ed. William R. Trumble and Angus Stevenson, Oxford: Oxford University Press
12. ^ a b Bartlett, John Russell (1848), Dictionary of Americanisms, New York: Bartlett and Welford
13. ^ The American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language (1992), 3rd ed., Boston: Houghton Mifflin
14. ^ a b Collins English Dictionary (2023), Glasgow: HarperCollins