license

1. (transitive) (applied to a piece of intellectual property)Examples: "It was decided to license Wikipedia under the GFDL."; "The ability to shift profits to low-tax countries by locating intellectual property in them, which is then licensed to related businesses in high-tax countries, is often assumed to be the preserve of high-tech companies."UStransitive

2. (transitive) (applied to a piece of intellectual property)Examples: "The filmmakers licensed several iconic 80's songs for the soundtrack."; "As part of the strategic relationship, Microsoft has licensed the image segmentation, compression and viewing technology from ScanSoft."; "They changed their campaign, licensed the song and used it for over six years in all of their advertising."UStransitive

3. (transitive) To give permission or freedom to; accept.Examples: "Intruders there were in Harley Street, of whom it was not aware; but Mr and Mrs Merdle it delighted to honour. Society was aware of Mr and Mrs Merdle. Society had said ‘Let us license them; let us know them.’"UStransitive

4. (linguistics, transitive) To permit (as grammatically correct).Examples: "No English adverbs have mandatory complements, and most don't even license optional ones."; "Kayne argues that the crucial fact which licenses preposition stranding in English but not in French is the fact that in English verbs and prepositions assign Case similarly, and hence they govern similarly."UStransitive