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carte blanche

noun
/(ˈ)kɑɹt ˈblɑn(t)ʃ/US

Etymology

Borrowed from French carte blanche, referring to a blank or white card.

  1. borrowed from carte blanche

Definitions

  1. Unlimited discretionary power to act

    Unlimited discretionary power to act; unrestricted authority.

    • “[…] But since when did army officers afford the luxury of amanuenses in this simple republic ?[…]Does your carte blanche run so far as that also ?”
    • We have given technology carte blanche, much in the way Congress has always, in the past, given automatic approval to defense budgets, resulting in the most gigantic graft in history.

  2. A blank paper that is signed by some authority and given to a person to fill as they…

    A blank paper that is signed by some authority and given to a person to fill as they please.

  3. A hand with no court cards.

  4. ›+ 2 more definitions

    1. A chargecard issued by Diners Club International.

    2. As an undifferentiated mass, without regard to distinctions

      As an undifferentiated mass, without regard to distinctions; willy-nilly. (Possibly from confusion with another French phrase, en masse.)

      • Can gay and lesbian people in justice be excluded carte blanche from the sacrament of sexual love sharing, let alone from church membership or leadership?
      • The mass production of tennis equipment made it more affordable, such that blue-collar workers were no longer excluded carte blanche as before the war (Birley 1995b).

The neighborhood

Vish — recursive loop

No curated loop yet for carte blanche. Loops are being traced one word at a time while the ingestion pipeline matures.

sense glosses and etymology drawn from English Wiktionary · source · CC-BY-SA