FRANCHISE • FREE TRANSLATOR.ORG • 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

... powerful and hostile tribe on the Thames in 1637. Six hundred Indians perished, only two whites were killed. Connecticut was long after that comparatively safe from Indians. In 1639, the people formed themselves into a body politic by a voluntary association. The elective franchise belonged to all the members of the towns who had taken the oath of allegiance to the commonwealth. It was the most perfect democracy which had ever been organized. It rested on free labor. "No jurisdiction of the English monarch was recognized; the laws of honest justice were the basis of their ...

— Log-book of Timothy Boardman • Samuel W Boardman

... The multitudes of slaves are of course without votes, and so is the numerous class of the important, cultivated, and often wealthy metics. To get Athenian citizenship is notoriously hard. For a stranger (say a metic who had done some conspicuous public service) to be given the franchise, a special vote must be passed by the Ecclesia itself; even then the new citizen may be prosecuted as undeserving before a dicastery, and disfranchised. Again, only children both of whose parents are free Athenian citizens can themselves be enrolled on the carefully guarded lists in ...

— A Day In Old Athens • William Stearns Davis

... remarked, "and Nat ain't quite bankrupt yet. The Gaylords," continued Mr. Pardriff, who always took the cynical view of a man of the world, "have had some row with the Northeastern over lumber shipments. I understand they're goin' to buck 'em for a franchise in the next Legislature, just to make it lively. The Gaylords ain't exactly poverty-stricken, but they might as well try to move Sawanec Mountain ...

— The Crossing • Winston Churchill

... no ridicule or abuse of this stiff-necked old fraud could be excessive; for, if he were not Wordsworth, as what but a fraud could we picture him in his later years, as he protests against Catholic Emancipation, the extension of the franchise, the freedom of the Press, and popular education? "Can it, in a general view," he asks, "be good that an infant should learn much which its parents do not know? Will not a child arrogate a ...

— Old and New Masters • Robert Lynd

... pacere, which might seem to imply intent, are supposed to have been inserted merely to give jurisdiction to the king's court. Glanvill says it belongs to the sheriff, in case of neglect on the part of lords of franchise, to take cognizance of melees, blows, and even wounds, unless the accuser add a charge of breach of the king's peace (nisi accusator adjiciat de pace Domini Regis infracta). /1/ Reeves observes, "In this distinction between the sheriff's jurisdiction and that of the king, we ...

— The Common Law • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Jr.

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