"say-so" meaning in English

See say-so in All languages combined, or Wiktionary

Noun

Forms: say-sos [plural]
Etymology: say + so Etymology templates: {{compound|en|say|so}} say + so Head templates: {{en-noun}} say-so (plural say-sos)
  1. (informal) Authority, as backing some statement, injunction, or command. Tags: informal Synonyms: leave, permission, sayso Related terms: blessing, clearance, go-ahead, imprimatur, placet, sanction, warrant, what someone says goes
    Sense id: en-say-so-en-noun-JNp1uR2P Categories (other): English entries with incorrect language header

Inflected forms

Alternative forms

Download JSON data for say-so meaning in English (3.0kB)

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  "etymology_templates": [
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      "args": {
        "1": "en",
        "2": "say",
        "3": "so"
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      "expansion": "say + so",
      "name": "compound"
    }
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  "etymology_text": "say + so",
  "forms": [
    {
      "form": "say-sos",
      "tags": [
        "plural"
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  "head_templates": [
    {
      "args": {},
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  "lang_code": "en",
  "pos": "noun",
  "senses": [
    {
      "categories": [
        {
          "kind": "other",
          "name": "English entries with incorrect language header",
          "parents": [
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      "examples": [
        {
          "text": "I wouldn't buy anything that expensive just on the say-so of a saleman."
        },
        {
          "text": "You are not to go into that room without my say-so."
        },
        {
          "ref": "1973, New Scientist, volume 58, number 852, page 822",
          "text": "At the moment, and in \"an emergency\", you or I could be sent to the bin, willy-nilly, on the say-so of a single doctor (who may never have seen us before, and need have no particular experience of mental illness), so long as the application is supported by one of our relatives, or by a \"social worker\".",
          "type": "quotation"
        },
        {
          "ref": "1988, Boris Aldanov, The human predicament, volume 1, page 134",
          "text": "the answer is that we just 'think' ourselves to Be Goodness Itself, we confer that Goodness upon ourselves by say-so, […]",
          "type": "quotation"
        },
        {
          "ref": "2007, Francesca Aran Murphy, God Is Not a Story: Realism Revisited",
          "text": "We could only know the authors are eye witnesses by taking it on their say-so, that is, by believing them, or by believing a string of say-sos.",
          "type": "quotation"
        },
        {
          "ref": "1999, Jack C. Doppelt, Ellen Shearer, Nonvoters: America's no-shows, page 162",
          "text": "\"I guess I have gotten fed up with the government. You're only helped if you're on the good side. If you're on the bad side, then you can't have help, you've got no say-so, and you've got no rights, […]\"",
          "type": "quotation"
        },
        {
          "ref": "2018, James Lambert, “A multitude of ‘lishes’: The nomenclature of hybridity”, in English World-Wide, page 2",
          "text": "Urban Dictionary records at least 66 of the terms found by the present research, but as this dictionary liberally accepts words, definitions, and sample sentences based solely on the say-so of contributors, in the absence of corroboration from other sources the authenticity of some entries must remain dubious.",
          "type": "quotation"
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      "glosses": [
        "Authority, as backing some statement, injunction, or command."
      ],
      "id": "en-say-so-en-noun-JNp1uR2P",
      "links": [
        [
          "Authority",
          "authority"
        ],
        [
          "statement",
          "statement"
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        [
          "injunction",
          "injunction"
        ],
        [
          "command",
          "command"
        ]
      ],
      "raw_glosses": [
        "(informal) Authority, as backing some statement, injunction, or command."
      ],
      "related": [
        {
          "word": "blessing"
        },
        {
          "word": "clearance"
        },
        {
          "word": "go-ahead"
        },
        {
          "word": "imprimatur"
        },
        {
          "word": "placet"
        },
        {
          "word": "sanction"
        },
        {
          "word": "warrant"
        },
        {
          "word": "what someone says goes"
        }
      ],
      "synonyms": [
        {
          "word": "leave"
        },
        {
          "word": "permission"
        },
        {
          "word": "sayso"
        }
      ],
      "tags": [
        "informal"
      ]
    }
  ],
  "word": "say-so"
}
{
  "etymology_templates": [
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      "args": {
        "1": "en",
        "2": "say",
        "3": "so"
      },
      "expansion": "say + so",
      "name": "compound"
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  "etymology_text": "say + so",
  "forms": [
    {
      "form": "say-sos",
      "tags": [
        "plural"
      ]
    }
  ],
  "head_templates": [
    {
      "args": {},
      "expansion": "say-so (plural say-sos)",
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  "lang_code": "en",
  "pos": "noun",
  "related": [
    {
      "word": "blessing"
    },
    {
      "word": "clearance"
    },
    {
      "word": "go-ahead"
    },
    {
      "word": "imprimatur"
    },
    {
      "word": "placet"
    },
    {
      "word": "sanction"
    },
    {
      "word": "warrant"
    },
    {
      "word": "what someone says goes"
    }
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        "English countable nouns",
        "English entries with incorrect language header",
        "English informal terms",
        "English lemmas",
        "English multiword terms",
        "English nouns",
        "English terms with quotations",
        "Quotation templates to be cleaned"
      ],
      "examples": [
        {
          "text": "I wouldn't buy anything that expensive just on the say-so of a saleman."
        },
        {
          "text": "You are not to go into that room without my say-so."
        },
        {
          "ref": "1973, New Scientist, volume 58, number 852, page 822",
          "text": "At the moment, and in \"an emergency\", you or I could be sent to the bin, willy-nilly, on the say-so of a single doctor (who may never have seen us before, and need have no particular experience of mental illness), so long as the application is supported by one of our relatives, or by a \"social worker\".",
          "type": "quotation"
        },
        {
          "ref": "1988, Boris Aldanov, The human predicament, volume 1, page 134",
          "text": "the answer is that we just 'think' ourselves to Be Goodness Itself, we confer that Goodness upon ourselves by say-so, […]",
          "type": "quotation"
        },
        {
          "ref": "2007, Francesca Aran Murphy, God Is Not a Story: Realism Revisited",
          "text": "We could only know the authors are eye witnesses by taking it on their say-so, that is, by believing them, or by believing a string of say-sos.",
          "type": "quotation"
        },
        {
          "ref": "1999, Jack C. Doppelt, Ellen Shearer, Nonvoters: America's no-shows, page 162",
          "text": "\"I guess I have gotten fed up with the government. You're only helped if you're on the good side. If you're on the bad side, then you can't have help, you've got no say-so, and you've got no rights, […]\"",
          "type": "quotation"
        },
        {
          "ref": "2018, James Lambert, “A multitude of ‘lishes’: The nomenclature of hybridity”, in English World-Wide, page 2",
          "text": "Urban Dictionary records at least 66 of the terms found by the present research, but as this dictionary liberally accepts words, definitions, and sample sentences based solely on the say-so of contributors, in the absence of corroboration from other sources the authenticity of some entries must remain dubious.",
          "type": "quotation"
        }
      ],
      "glosses": [
        "Authority, as backing some statement, injunction, or command."
      ],
      "links": [
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          "Authority",
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        ],
        [
          "statement",
          "statement"
        ],
        [
          "injunction",
          "injunction"
        ],
        [
          "command",
          "command"
        ]
      ],
      "raw_glosses": [
        "(informal) Authority, as backing some statement, injunction, or command."
      ],
      "tags": [
        "informal"
      ]
    }
  ],
  "synonyms": [
    {
      "word": "leave"
    },
    {
      "word": "permission"
    },
    {
      "word": "sayso"
    }
  ],
  "word": "say-so"
}

This page is a part of the kaikki.org machine-readable English dictionary. This dictionary is based on structured data extracted on 2024-04-30 from the enwiktionary dump dated 2024-04-21 using wiktextract (210104c and c9440ce). 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.