permissive
Syllables: per·miss·ive/pəˈmɪsɪv/US/pəɹˈmɪsɪv/
permissive adjective: giving permission, or predisposed to give it; lenient.
Adjective
permissive (comparative more permissive, superlative most permissive)
- Giving permission, or predisposed to give it; lenient.
- For neither Man nor Angel can discern / Hypocrisy, the only evil that walks / Invisible, except to God alone, / By his permissive will, through Heaven and Earth;1667, John Milton, “Book 3”, in Paradise Lost, lines 682–685; republished as John Bradshaw, editor, The Poetical Works of John Milton, 2nd edition, volume 2, London: William H. Allen & Company, 1885...
- "Permissive" working allows more than one train to be in a block section at one time but trains must be run at low speed in order to stop on sight behind the train in front. Such working is often authorised to allow freight trains to "bunch" together to await a path through a bottleneck instead of...1962 October, “Talking of Trains: The collisions at Connington”, in Modern Railways, page 232
- Synonyms:
- broad-minded, liberal, tolerant, clement, easygoing, forbearing, indulgent, lax, lenient, loose-handed
- Open to the public by permission of the landowner.
- Many permissive paths work well and have done for a significant amount of time, enhancing or connecting our network of public footpaths, byways and bridleways, however unevenly distributed.2026 February 7, Leonie Helm, “"I’ve always loved a ‘permissive path’ – it’s always seemed like the nicest of invitations."”, in Countryfile
- That allows the replication of viruses.
- Antonyms:
- nonpermissive
Noun
permissive (plural permissives)
- A grammatical form indicating that an action is permitted by the speaker.
permissive meaning in Tamil, Malayalam and Kannada
permissive in Tamil
- இசைவு தருகிற, இசைவுடை, தடையிலா, தடையில்லாத
permissive in Malayalam
- broadminded, liberal, open-minded
- അനുമതി നൽകുന്ന, ഉദാരമനസ്സായ, ഉദാരസ്വഭാവമുള്ള, ഉന്മനസ്സ്, ഉത്കൃഷ്ടമനസ്സുള്ള, വിശാലമനസ്കനായ
permissive in Kannada
- ಅಪ್ಪಣೆ ಕೊಡುವ, ಅವಕಾಶ ಕೊಡುವ, ಮಾನ್ಯ ಮಾಡುವ, ಧಾರಾಳವಾಗಿ ಒಪ್ಪಿಕೊಳ್ಳುವ, ಕಟ್ಟುಪಾಡು ವಿಧಿಸದ, ಅನಿರ್ಬಂಧಿತ
Examples of permissive in a sentence
- "Permissive" working allows more than one train to be in a block section at one time but trains must be run at low speed in order to stop on sight behind the train in front.1962 October, “Talking of Trains: The collisions at Connington”, in Modern Railways, page 232:
- Some parents were too strict, some parents were too permissive and some parents were just right — and I saw no connection between parenting style and parental politics.2026 March 4, Leonard Sax, “Permissive parents skew left, strict ones right — US parenting has become political like never before”, in New...
Synonyms of permissive
13 more synonymsFewer synonyms
Antonyms
- nonpermissive
- bigoted
- closed-minded
- close-minded
- inclement
- intolerant
- narrow-minded
- nonindulgent
- nontolerant
- preachy
10 more antonymsFewer antonyms
Forms of permissive
| Adjective | |
|---|---|
| comparative | more permissive |
| superlative | most permissive |
| Noun | |
| plural | permissives |
Origin of permissive
From French permissif.
Words formed from permissive
Words that rhyme with permissive
Questions about permissive
- What does permissive mean?
- Permissive means giving permission, or predisposed to give it; lenient.
- What is permissive in Tamil?
- Permissive in Tamil is இசைவு தருகிற, இசைவுடை, தடையிலா. See Permissive meaning in Tamil.
- How do you use permissive in a sentence?
- "Permissive" working allows more than one train to be in a block section at one time but trains must be run at low speed in order to stop on sight behind the train in front.
- What part of speech is permissive?
- Permissive can be an adjective or a noun.
- How do you pronounce permissive?
- Permissive is pronounced /pəˈmɪsɪv/ (UK).
Words near permissive in the dictionary
Source and license
Adapted from Wiktionary: permissive (page history and authors); permissive (Tamil Wiktionary) (page history and authors); permissive (Olam, E.K. Kurup corpus) (dataset and license); permissive (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.
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Pronunciation audio from Wikimedia Commons, each file under its own free license: LL-Q1860 (eng)-Vealhurl-permissive.wav.
Cite this entry: “permissive.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/permissive. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.