FRANCHISE • DICTIONARY ONE.COM • Definition of Franchise

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/frˈæntʃˌaɪz/ Listen

noun

Franchise n.

Exemption from constraint or oppression; freedom; liberty. (Obs.)

(LAw) A particular privilege conferred by grant from a sovereign or a government, and vested in individuals; an immunity or exemption from ordinary jurisdiction; a constitutional or statutory right or privilege, esp. the right to vote. "Election by universal suffrage, as modified by the Constitution, is the one crowning franchise of the American people."

The district or jurisdiction to which a particular privilege extends; the limits of an immunity; hence, an asylum or sanctuary. "Churches and mobasteries in Spain are franchises for criminals."

Magnanimity; generosity; liberality; frankness; nobility. "Franchise in woman." (Obs.)

Elective franchise, the privilege or right of voting in an election of public officers.

verb

Franchise v. t. (past & past part. franchised; pres. part. franchising) To make free; to enfranchise; to give liberty to.

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Etymology of 'Franchise'

Collaborative International Dictionary of English 0.48

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"Franchise" Quotes from Famous Books

... Compulsory Female Franchise produced little or no elation even in circles which had been loudest in demanding the vote. The bulk of the women of the country had been indifferent or hostile to the franchise agitation, and the most fanatical Suffragettes began to wonder what they had found so attractive in the prospect ...

— The Chronicles of Clovis • Saki

... swept, and with these planes—all planes in use were required by franchise of operating companies to be equipped for the emergencies of war—swung into an echelon formation, the youthful pilot ...

— Astounding Stories of Super-Science April 1930 • Various

... outfabled fairy lore. The race that extorted from kings the charter of its political rights has won, from the princes and powers of the air, the earth and the water, the secret of supreme dominion, the illimitable franchise of ...

— Model Speeches for Practise • Grenville Kleiser

... is entirely dependant. So great is the number of the working-classes in every old and opulent community, compared to those who possess the advantages of property and superior education, that nothing is more certain than that, if the elective franchise be widely diffused, and no mode of classifying the votes, as at Rome, has been discovered, the sway of a numerical majority of incompetent electors will, erelong, become irresistible. Certain ruin then awaits the state. It was that which ruined Athens in ancient, ...

— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 58, Number 360, October 1845 • Various

... feel! I, even I, have begun to crochet! I do it for the same reason that the old toper in time of stress takes to his glass. It keeps me from thinking; it atrophies the brain; and now I know why the women of the East are so slow about getting the franchise. They crochet and work in wool instead of thinking. You can't do both! When the casualty lists are long, and letters from the Front ...

— The Next of Kin - Those who Wait and Wonder • Nellie L. McClung

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