carte blanche
/(ˈ)kɑːt ˈblɑːnʃ/US/(ˈ)kɑɹt ˈblɑn(t)ʃ/
carte blanche noun: unlimited discretionary power to act; unrestricted authority.
Noun
carte blanche (countable and uncountable, plural cartes blanches)
- Unlimited discretionary power to act; unrestricted authority.
- “[…] But since when did army officers afford the luxury of amanuenses in this simple republic ?[…]Does your carte blanche run so far as that also ?”1910, Emerson Hough, chapter I, in The Purchase Price: Or The Cause of Compromise, Indianapolis, Ind.: The Bobbs-Merrill Company, →OCLC
- We have given technology carte blanche, much in the way Congress has always, in the past, given automatic approval to defense budgets, resulting in the most gigantic graft in history.1970, Philip Slater, The Pursuit Of Loneliness, Boston: Beacon Press, page 128
- Synonyms:
- free hand, free rein, proxy in blank, blank check
- A blank paper that is signed by some authority and given to a person to fill as they please.
- Indeed, I later learned that when they had bought the place, in 1930, they had given my father's older sister Lina their checkbook, carte blanche, saying, "Do what you want, get what you want."2001, Oliver Sacks, Uncle Tungsten: Memories of a Chemical Boyhood, Alfred A. Knopf (2001), 15
- Synonyms:
- proxy in blank
- A hand with no court cards.
- A chargecard issued by Diners Club International.
Adverb
carte blanche
- As an undifferentiated mass, without regard to distinctions; willy-nilly. (Possibly from confusion with another French phrase, en masse.)
- Can gay and lesbian people in justice be excluded carte blanche from the sacrament of sexual love sharing, let alone from church membership or leadership?2007, Gordon J. Hilsman, Intimate Spirituality: The Catholic Way of Love and Sex, →ISBN, page 114
- The mass production of tennis equipment made it more affordable, such that blue-collar workers were no longer excluded carte blanche as before the war (Birley 1995b).2014, Robert J. Lake, A Social History of Tennis in Britain, →ISBN
carte blanche meaning in Tamil, Bengali, Kannada and Arabic
carte blanche in Tamil
- வெள்ளேடு, வரம்பிலா அதிகாரம்
carte blanche in Bengali
- unlimited discretionary power to act; unrestricted authority
- আলিহুকুম alihukum
carte blanche in Kannada
- ಪೂರ್ಣಾಧಿಕಾರ, ಸಂಪೂರ್ಣಾಧಿಕಾರ ಹೊಂದಿರುವುದು, ಪೂರ್ಣಾಧಿಕಾರ ಪತ್ರ
carte blanche in Arabic
- unlimited discretionary power to act; unrestricted authority
- تَفْوِيض مُطْلَق tafwīḍ muṭlaq, ضَوْء أَخْضَر ḍawʔ ʔaḵḍar
More languagesFewer languages
- carte blanche in Indonesian
- carte blanche, cek kosong
- carte blanche in Persian
- کارت بلانش kârt-blânš, اختیار تام
Synonyms of carte blanche
Forms of carte blanche
| plural | cartes blanches |
|---|
Origin of carte blanche
Borrowed from French carte blanche, referring to a blank or white card.
Questions about carte blanche
- What does carte blanche mean?
- Carte blanche means unlimited discretionary power to act; unrestricted authority.
- What is carte blanche in Tamil?
- Carte blanche in Tamil is வெள்ளேடு, வரம்பிலா அதிகாரம். See Carte blanche meaning in Tamil.
- What part of speech is carte blanche?
- Carte blanche can be a noun or an adverb.
- How do you pronounce carte blanche?
- Carte blanche is pronounced /(ˈ)kɑɹt ˈblɑn(t)ʃ/ (US).
- What is the plural of carte blanche?
- The plural of carte blanche is cartes blanches.
Words near carte blanche in the dictionary
Source and license
Adapted from Wiktionary: carte blanche (page history and authors); carte blanche (Tamil Wiktionary) (page history and authors); carte blanche (Kannada Wiktionary) (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.
Last updated:
Pronunciation audio from Wikimedia Commons, each file under its own free license: LL-Q1860 (eng)-Vealhurl-carte blanche.wav.
Cite this entry: “carte blanche.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/carte_blanche. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.