Word.ws English Dictionary

without a by-your-leave

without a by-your-leave is the alternative form of without so much as a by your leave.

Meaning of without so much as a by your leave

Prepositional phrase

  1. (dated) Omitting the social niceties, especially that of asking permission.
    • "What now," he said, "have the King's men respect neither for piety nor age that they burst in upon the seclusion of a holy man without so much as a 'by your leave' ?"1914, Edgar Rice Burroughs, The Outlaw of Torn

Questions about without a by-your-leave

What is without a by-your-leave the alternative form of?
Without a by-your-leave is the alternative form of without so much as a by your leave.

Words near without a by-your-leave in the dictionary

  1. witholden
  2. witholding
  3. witholds
  4. without
  5. without a by your leave
  6. without a by-your-leave
  7. without a doubt
  8. without a hitch
  9. without a murmur
  10. without a scratch
  11. without a shadow of a doubt

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: without a by-your-leave (page history and authors); without so much as a by your leave (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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Cite this entry: “without a by-your-leave.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/without_a_by-your-leave. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.