Word.ws English Dictionary

copyleft

copyleft noun: the philosophy of using copyrights to enforce freedom of information, especially software source code.

Noun

copyleft (usually uncountable, plural copylefts)

  1. (usually) The philosophy of using copyrights to enforce freedom of information, especially software source code.
    • They believe in copyleft because they want their software to be used freely by anyone.
  2. (usually) A software license that follows this philosophy.
    • I have placed my program under copyleft.
    • The GNU General Public License is a copyleft licence.

Verb

copyleft (third-person singular simple present copylefts, present participle copylefting, simple past and past participle copylefted)

  1. (transitive) To license under a copyleft license.
    • Linus Torvalds copylefted the Linux kernel.

copyleft meaning in Tamil, Indonesian and Vietnamese

copyleft in Tamil

அளிப்புரிமை

copyleft in Indonesian

philosophy
hak tiru

copyleft in Vietnamese

philosophy
bản quyền ngược

Forms of copyleft

Noun
pluralcopylefts
Verb
third-person singular presentcopylefts
present participlecopylefting
past participlecopylefted
pastcopylefted

Origin of copyleft

A pun on copyright, which refers to using copyright laws for purposes that are in some ways contrary to copyright's original intent.

Words formed from copyleft

Phrases with copyleft

Questions about copyleft

What does copyleft mean?
Copyleft means the philosophy of using copyrights to enforce freedom of information, especially software source code.
What is copyleft in Tamil?
Copyleft in Tamil is அளிப்புரிமை. See Copyleft meaning in Tamil.
What part of speech is copyleft?
Copyleft can be a noun or a verb.
What is the plural of copyleft?
The plural of copyleft is copylefts.

Words near copyleft in the dictionary

  1. copyings
  2. copyism
  3. copyisms
  4. copyist
  5. copyists
  6. copyleft
  7. copyleft symbol
  8. copyleft symbols
  9. copylefted
  10. copylefting
  11. copyleftist

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: copyleft (page history and authors); copyleft (Tamil 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:

Cite this entry: “copyleft.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/copyleft. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.