ticket-of-leave

Noun

ticket-of-leave (plural tickets-of-leave)

1. A permit once granted to convicts allowing them to leave prison under certain circumstances; used especially of convicts transported to the British colonies
   • 1893:The prosecutrix was the wife of a ticket-of-leave man, named Daniel Jackson, and she was also separated from her husband, and lived for some time with a man named Clarke, who died on the day before the alleged robbery was committed. Clarke left a will bequeathing all his property to the...
   • And as they sat snuggled up together at the far end of the table, talking to one another in low voices, and staring at me from time to time as if I had been a ticket-of-leave man who had got in by crashing the gate and might be expected, unless carefully watched, to pocket a spoon or two, it was...1938, P.G. Wodehouse, The Code of the Woosters