ppl. a. [f. LICENSE v. + -ED1 or LICENCE sb. + -ED2.]
1. To whom or for which a licence has been granted; provided with a licence. Now often spec. (of a house, etc.) licensed for the sale of alcoholic liquor. Licensed victualler: see VICTUALLER.
1632. Sherwood, Licenced, licencié.
1645. Milton, Colast., Wks. (1847), 222. The reasons of your licensed pamphlet are good.
1765. Blackstone, Comm., I. viii. 325. There are now eight hundred licensed coaches.
1817. W. Selwyn, Law Nisi Prius (ed. 4), II. 926. For the purpose of the licensed act of trading … the person licensed was to be considered as virtually an adopted subject of this country.
1868. Nat. Encycl., I. 414. A constable may at all times enter licensed premises.
2. To whom or which liberty or free scope is allowed; privileged, recognized, regular, tolerated.
1593. Donne, Sat., iv. 228. He … Iests like a licens’d fool, commands the law.
1640. H. Mill, Nights Search, 123. He … turn’d her out; now she’s a licenst whore.
1742. Pope, Dunc., IV. 587. From Stage to Stage the licens’d Earl may run.
1809–10. Coleridge, Friend (1865), 32. The established professions were … licensed modes of witchcraft.
1828. Scott, F. M. Perth, xxiii. Some, doubtless, [retired] to the licensed freedoms of some tavern.
1850. Tennyson, In Mem., cxiii. Should licensed boldness gather force.
1859. Geo. Eliot, A. Bede, vi. Imagination is a licensed trespasser.
1879. Froude, Cæsar, xv. 229. Clodius was a licensed libertine.
