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license

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be a license to print money

Of an activity, business model, or company, to yield very high profits but require little or no effort to do so. Primarily heard in US. All these hefty parking fees and fines are just a license to print money for the city. These trashy gossip magazines are of such low quality, yet they always fly off the shelves. The whole racket is a license to print money.

See also: license, money, print

license to do something

permission, right, or justification to do something. You have no license to behave in that manner! Who granted you license to enter my house without knocking?

See also: license

poetic license

liberties or license of the type taken by artists, especially poets, to violate patterns of rhyme, harmony, structure, etc. I couldn't tell whether he kept making spelling mistakes or if it was just poetic license.

See also: license, poetic

*(a) right to something

 and *(the) right to something

a privilege or license to have something. (*Typically: get ~; have ~; give someone ~.) I have the right to have the kind of house I want. You have a right to any house you can afford.

See also: right

be a licence to print money

  (British & Australian) also be a license to print money (American)

if a company or activity is a licence to print money, it causes people to become very rich without having to make any effort These shopping channels are just a licence to print money.

See also: licence, money, print

poetic license

the way in which writers and other artists are allowed to ignore rules or change facts in their work It's obvious the writer was using a certain amount of poetic licence because the route she mentions has been closed for 50 years.

See also: license, poetic

poetic license

Also, artistic license. The liberty taken by a writer or artist in deviating from conventional form or fact to achieve an effect. For example, I've never seen grass or a tree of that color; but that's artistic license. [Late 1700s]

See also: license, poetic