See licence to print money in All languages combined, or Wiktionary
{
"etymology_text": "Often attributed to Lew Grade, and notably used by Roy Thompson of Scottish Television around 1956.",
"forms": [
{
"form": "licences to print money",
"tags": [
"plural"
]
}
],
"head_templates": [
{
"args": {
"1": "licences to print money"
},
"expansion": "licence to print money (plural licences to print money)",
"name": "en-noun"
}
],
"lang": "English",
"lang_code": "en",
"pos": "noun",
"senses": [
{
"categories": [
{
"_dis": "54 46",
"kind": "other",
"name": "English entries with incorrect language header",
"parents": [
"Entries with incorrect language header",
"Entry maintenance"
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"source": "w+disamb"
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{
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},
{
"_dis": "51 49",
"kind": "other",
"name": "Terms with German translations",
"parents": [],
"source": "w+disamb"
}
],
"glosses": [
"Used other than figuratively or idiomatically: see licence, to, print, money."
],
"id": "en-licence_to_print_money-en-noun-UK3QJDY0",
"links": [
[
"licence",
"licence#English"
],
[
"to",
"to#English"
],
[
"print",
"print#English"
],
[
"money",
"money#English"
]
],
"related": [
{
"_dis1": "80 20",
"word": "print money"
},
{
"_dis1": "80 20",
"word": "laughing all the way to the bank"
}
],
"synonyms": [
{
"_dis1": "80 20",
"tags": [
"US"
],
"word": "license to print money"
}
]
},
{
"categories": [
{
"_dis": "54 46",
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"Entries with incorrect language header",
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{
"_dis": "51 49",
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{
"_dis": "52 48",
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"source": "w+disamb"
},
{
"_dis": "51 49",
"kind": "other",
"name": "Terms with German translations",
"parents": [],
"source": "w+disamb"
}
],
"examples": [
{
"ref": "1953, United States. Navy Dept. Bureau of Ordnance, Buford Rowland, William B. Boyd, U.S. Navy Bureau of Ordnance in World War II:",
"text": "Owning a machine tool plant, it was said, was almost as good as a license to print money.",
"type": "quote"
},
{
"ref": "1960, Institute of Economic Affairs (Great Britain), Hobart papers:",
"text": "the rather casual remark of Lord Thomson, referring to his holding in Scottish Television, that the television contract was 'a licence to print money' was much quoted",
"type": "quote"
},
{
"ref": "2003 October 1, BBC News, “ITV: From Take Your Pick to Popstars”, in (Please provide the book title or journal name):",
"text": "More competition means ITV's glory days are long gone - and the new company's bosses know they will have to fight hard to regain the old licence to print money.",
"type": "quote"
}
],
"glosses": [
"A means of generating a large income with little effort."
],
"id": "en-licence_to_print_money-en-noun--rgTLLqN",
"links": [
[
"generating",
"generate"
],
[
"income",
"income"
],
[
"effort",
"effort"
]
],
"raw_glosses": [
"(colloquial, idiomatic) A means of generating a large income with little effort."
],
"tags": [
"colloquial",
"idiomatic"
],
"translations": [
{
"_dis1": "9 91",
"code": "de",
"lang": "German",
"sense": "means of generating large income",
"tags": [
"feminine"
],
"word": "Gelddruckmaschine"
}
]
}
],
"sounds": [
{
"audio": "En-au-licence to print money.ogg",
"mp3_url": "https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/transcoded/4/4e/En-au-licence_to_print_money.ogg/En-au-licence_to_print_money.ogg.mp3",
"ogg_url": "https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/4/4e/En-au-licence_to_print_money.ogg"
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],
"word": "licence to print money"
}
{
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"English entries with incorrect language header",
"English lemmas",
"English multiword terms",
"English nouns",
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"Pages with 1 entry",
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"Terms with German translations"
],
"etymology_text": "Often attributed to Lew Grade, and notably used by Roy Thompson of Scottish Television around 1956.",
"forms": [
{
"form": "licences to print money",
"tags": [
"plural"
]
}
],
"head_templates": [
{
"args": {
"1": "licences to print money"
},
"expansion": "licence to print money (plural licences to print money)",
"name": "en-noun"
}
],
"lang": "English",
"lang_code": "en",
"pos": "noun",
"related": [
{
"word": "print money"
},
{
"word": "laughing all the way to the bank"
}
],
"senses": [
{
"glosses": [
"Used other than figuratively or idiomatically: see licence, to, print, money."
],
"links": [
[
"licence",
"licence#English"
],
[
"to",
"to#English"
],
[
"print",
"print#English"
],
[
"money",
"money#English"
]
]
},
{
"categories": [
"English colloquialisms",
"English idioms",
"English terms with quotations"
],
"examples": [
{
"ref": "1953, United States. Navy Dept. Bureau of Ordnance, Buford Rowland, William B. Boyd, U.S. Navy Bureau of Ordnance in World War II:",
"text": "Owning a machine tool plant, it was said, was almost as good as a license to print money.",
"type": "quote"
},
{
"ref": "1960, Institute of Economic Affairs (Great Britain), Hobart papers:",
"text": "the rather casual remark of Lord Thomson, referring to his holding in Scottish Television, that the television contract was 'a licence to print money' was much quoted",
"type": "quote"
},
{
"ref": "2003 October 1, BBC News, “ITV: From Take Your Pick to Popstars”, in (Please provide the book title or journal name):",
"text": "More competition means ITV's glory days are long gone - and the new company's bosses know they will have to fight hard to regain the old licence to print money.",
"type": "quote"
}
],
"glosses": [
"A means of generating a large income with little effort."
],
"links": [
[
"generating",
"generate"
],
[
"income",
"income"
],
[
"effort",
"effort"
]
],
"raw_glosses": [
"(colloquial, idiomatic) A means of generating a large income with little effort."
],
"tags": [
"colloquial",
"idiomatic"
]
}
],
"sounds": [
{
"audio": "En-au-licence to print money.ogg",
"mp3_url": "https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/transcoded/4/4e/En-au-licence_to_print_money.ogg/En-au-licence_to_print_money.ogg.mp3",
"ogg_url": "https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/4/4e/En-au-licence_to_print_money.ogg"
}
],
"synonyms": [
{
"tags": [
"US"
],
"word": "license to print money"
}
],
"translations": [
{
"code": "de",
"lang": "German",
"sense": "means of generating large income",
"tags": [
"feminine"
],
"word": "Gelddruckmaschine"
}
],
"word": "licence to print money"
}
Download raw JSONL data for licence to print money meaning in English (2.7kB)
This page is a part of the kaikki.org machine-readable English dictionary. This dictionary is based on structured data extracted on 2025-01-10 from the enwiktionary dump dated 2025-01-01 using wiktextract (df33d17 and 4ed51a5). The data shown on this site has been post-processed and various details (e.g., extra categories) removed, some information disambiguated, and additional data merged from other sources. See the raw data download page for the unprocessed wiktextract data.
If you use this data in academic research, please cite Tatu Ylonen: Wiktextract: Wiktionary as Machine-Readable Structured Data, Proceedings of the 13th Conference on Language Resources and Evaluation (LREC), pp. 1317-1325, Marseille, 20-25 June 2022. Linking to the relevant page(s) under https://kaikki.org would also be greatly appreciated.