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

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.