Subscriber login


Forgot your password?

Library card login

Other

permissive

Syllabification: (per·mis·sive)
Pronunciation: /pərˈmisiv/
Translate permissive | into French | into German | into Italian | into Spanish
Definition of permissive

adjective

  • 1allowing or characterized by great or excessive freedom of behavior:I was not a permissive parent the permissive society of the 60s and 70s
  • 2 Law allowed but not obligatory; optional:the Hague Convention was permissive, not mandatory
  • 3 Biology allowing a biological or biochemical process to occur:the mutants grow well at the permissive temperature
  • allowing the infection and replication of viruses.

Derivatives

permissively

adverb

permissiveness

noun

Origin:

late 15th century (in the sense 'tolerated, allowed'): from Old French, or from medieval Latin permissivus, from permiss- 'allowed', from the verb permittere (see permit1)

permissive in other Oxford dictionaries

Definition of permissive in the British & World English dictionary

Nearby words

  |  Cite

Word of the day

enjambement

/ ɪnˈdʒam(b)m(ə)nt /
noun
(in verse) the continuation of a sentence without a pause …