Word.ws English Dictionary

buy the rights

buy the rights verb: to acquire the legal rights to a work, property, story, or intellectual creation, especially for purposes such as publication, adaptation, or distribution.

Verb

buy the rights (third-person singular simple present buys the rights, present participle buying the rights, simple past and past participle bought the rights)

  1. (idiomatic) To acquire the legal rights to a work, property, story, or intellectual creation, especially for purposes such as publication, adaptation, or distribution.
    • The studio decided to buy the rights to the novel before any competitors could bid.
  2. (informal) Used as a rebuke to someone seeking information for free.
    • Jumped into the Chevy, headed for big lights
      Wanna know the rest? Hey, buy the rights.1995, OMC, "How Bizarre"

Forms of buy the rights

third-person singular presentbuys the rights
present participlebuying the rights
past participlebought the rights
pastbought the rights

Questions about buy the rights

What does buy the rights mean?
Buy the rights means to acquire the legal rights to a work, property, story, or intellectual creation, especially for purposes such as publication, adaptation, or distribution.
What part of speech is buy the rights?
Buy the rights is a verb.
What is the past tense of buy the rights?
The past tense of buy the rights is bought the rights.

Words near buy the rights in the dictionary

  1. buy the dip
  2. buy the dips
  3. buy the farm
  4. buy the rabbit
  5. buy the rack
  6. buy the rights
  7. buy the rumor
  8. buy the rumor, sell the fact
  9. buy the rumor, sell the news
  10. buy the same horse twice
  11. buy time

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: buy the rights (page history and authors). Text available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 license. Word.ws reformatted the entry and added links. Wiktionary data of 2026-09-02.

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