Crossword clues for enfranchise
enfranchise
Longman Dictionary of Contemporary English
The Collaborative International Dictionary
Enfranchise \En*fran"chise\, v. t. [imp. & p. p. Enfranchised; p. pr. & vb. n. Enfranchising.] [Pref. en- + franchise: cf. F. enfranchir.]
To set free; to liberate from slavery, prison, or any binding power.
--Bacon.To endow with a franchise; to incorporate into a body politic and thus to invest with civil and political privileges; to admit to the privileges of a freeman; to give the right to vote.
To receive as denizens; to naturalize; as, to enfranchise foreign words.
--I. Watts.
Douglas Harper's Etymology Dictionary
early 15c., "grant (someone) the status or privilege of citizenship, admit to membership in a town," from Old French enfranchiss-, present participle stem of enfranchir "to set or make free; grant a franchise to;" from en- "make, put in" (see en- (1)) + franc "free" (see franchise (n.)). Generally with reference to voting privileges after c.1700. Related: Enfranchised; enfranchisement.
Wiktionary
vb. 1 To grant the franchise to an entity, specifically: 2 # To grant the privilege of voting to a person or group of people. 3 # To grant municipal or parliamentary rights to an entity such as a city or constituency. 4 # To grant freedom from slavery or servitude.
WordNet
v. grant freedom to; as from slavery or servitude; "Slaves were enfranchised in the mid-19th century" [syn: affranchise]
grant voting rights [ant: disenfranchise]
Usage examples of "enfranchise".
O books, who alone are liberal and free, who give to all who ask of you and enfranchise all who serve you faithfully!
There is no foundation that will enfranchise them, no philanthropist who will risk his hoard in the hands of the mad ones.
Italians, I pledge you that it is Romans who will be crying out to become enfranchised citizens of Italia!
Italians, newly enfranchised and smarting about the shabby way in which they had been treated, began to arrive in Rome toward the end of Sextilis.
The first Allies were located in the Italian peninsula, and as time went on toward the later Republic, those Italian peoples not enfranchised as full Roman citizens nor possessed of the Latin Rights were deemed the Italian Allies.
Presumably it also fully enfranchised all Latin Rights communities in Italy.
Lucius Cato the Consul is left with none save raw recruitsfarm boys newly enfranchised, from Umbria and Etruria.
Bat, here, was born of an enfranchised father, and, as to our companions, they were born of free parents.
In England we accept the rule of Parliament, and are satisfied that the election of representatives by an enfranchised people is the most satisfactory form of democracy, though we retain a healthy instinct of criticism of the Government in power.
Charter promised political enfranchisement to the labouring people, and once enfranchised they could work out by legislation their own social salvation.
The town workman was enfranchised by this Act as the middle-class man had been enfranchised by the Act of 1832, and the electorate was increased from about 100,000 to 2,000,000.
Then, absolutely free, and enfranchised from the dominion of all ills, he mingles with the crowd of Initiates, and, crowned with flowers, celebrates with them the holy orgies, in the brilliant realms of ether, and the dwelling-place of Ormuzd.
Of the details of my activity I shall make no mention, such level being far below the flight of these enfranchised hours of night wherein I write.
The patrician Photius, perhaps, alone was resolved to live and to die like his ancestors: he enfranchised himself with the stroke of a dagger, and left his tyrant the poor consolation of exposing with ignominy the lifeless corpse of the fugitive.
Danielis were enfranchised by their new lord, and transplanted as a colony to the Italian coast.