authorize

authorize, commission, accredit, license denote in common to invest with power or the right to act.

One authorizes a person to act for oneself when he is given the necessary legal right or power with or without instructions of a specific character. Often discretionary powers are implied

{

authorize a friend to make an answer to an attack on one’s character

}

{

our clerks are authorized to receive contributions for the Red Cross

}

One commissions a person when one not only authorizes but instructs him to perform a definite duty or office

{

I am commissioned to make you an offer which I have told him . . . you would not accept— Gray

}

Commission may imply appointment as one’s business agent (as in buying, selling, or supplying goods) or it may suggest an order to do a certain kind of work, especially work of a professional or artistic nature

{

commissioned an artist to paint his children’s portraits

}

One accredits a person when one sends him, invested with authority and possessed of the proper credentials, as a representative, delegate, or ambassador

{

John Hay was accredited to the Court of St. James’s

}

{

the sovereign to whom I am accredited— Motley

}

One licenses a person or a business, a trade, or a craft when one grants formal legal permission to act in a certain capacity or to carry on a particular business, trade, or craft

{

license a teacher

}

{

license medical school graduates to practice medicine

}

{

a licensed dental laboratory

}

License sometimes stresses permission so strongly that the implication of authorization is obscured and that of regulation substituted

{

license beggars

}

{

license a restaurant to sell liquor

}

Analogous words: empower, *enable: permit, allow, *let

Contrasted words: enjoin, *forbid, prohibit, interdict