permis (French)
Where does "permis" come from?
French permis comes from the past participle of permettre, “to allow” or “to permit.” It goes back through Old French to Latin permittere, built from per- and mittere, literally “to let go” or “send through,” and in French the participle came to be used as a noun for an official authorization: a permit or licence.
Full etymology tree
- permis (French), 'permit, licence'
- back-formation from permettre (French), 'to permit, to allow (to grant permission or access)'
- inherited from permettre (Old French)
- inherited from permittere (Latin), 'second-person singular future passive indicative of permittō'
- prefix per- (Latin), 'Used to make adjectives or verbs that are "very" something.'
- inherited from *per (Proto-Indo-European)
- compound of mittere (Latin), 'second-person singular future passive indicative of mittō'
- inherited from *smitēō (Proto-Italic)
- prefix per- (Latin), 'Used to make adjectives or verbs that are "very" something.'
- inherited from permittere (Latin), 'second-person singular future passive indicative of permittō'
- inherited from permettre (Old French)
- back-formation from permettre (French), 'to permit, to allow (to grant permission or access)'
Descendants and derived words
- permis de conduire (French)
- permis de construire (French)
- permis de séjour (French)
- permis de travail (French)
- permis (Romanian)
- permi (Turkish)
Updated March 2026
Etymology data from Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0 · About Miraris