Licitness

Part of speech: noun

Definitions

1. The quality of being in accordance with the law or authorized by legal norms is referred to as this state of legality
2. This concept encompasses the notion of compliance with laws and being granted legal permission
3. The condition of being permitted or allowed by law or rules

Etymology: Licit comes straight from Latin "licitus," the past participle of "licere," meaning "to be allowed," so the word's core idea is permission rather than law as such. English borrowed the adjective first, and "-ness" was then added to it, a suffix that goes back to Old English "-nes" and has been used to turn adjectives into nouns of quality for more than a thousand years. The result is a plain, transparent formation: "licit" plus "-ness" gives the state of being permitted, lawful or authorized. What is notable is how little the noun has moved from its Latin roots. Where many English adjectives drifted from their original permission-based senses toward moral or legal judgement, "licitness" keeps the older logic of something being allowed to happen. The word's history is therefore a clear case of a Latin verb of permission passing through an English suffix to give a precise term for legality.

Synonyms: legitimacy, lawfulness, permissibility, validity, legality

Antonyms: illegitimacy, illegality, prohibition, forbidden, unlawfulness