permissive

Definitions


[pəˈmɪsɪv], (Adjective)

Definitions:
- allowing or characterized by great or excessive freedom of behaviour
(e.g: a permissive parent)

- allowed but not obligatory; optional
(e.g: the Hague Convention was permissive, not mandatory)

- allowing a biological or biochemical process to occur
(e.g: the mutants grow well at the permissive temperature)


Phrases:

Origin:
late 15th century (in the sense ‘tolerated, allowed’): from Old French, or from medieval Latin permissivus, from permiss- ‘allowed’, from the verb permittere (see permit)




definition by Oxford Dictionaries