Meaning
An arrangement so effortlessly and reliably profitable that its holder might as well be legally authorised to manufacture banknotes; almost always resentful or ironic. It is said of monopolies, broadcasting franchises, patent holders, toll collectors and other low-effort, high-return businesses whose profits seem guaranteed rather than earned. Informal and almost always envious or sarcastic about advantage that feels unearned. Regional use: British English.
Origin
The earliest known use traced by Word Histories is North American: a Montreal Gazette sports column of 19 May 1943 - 'I'd rather have a big league franchise in Los Angeles than a licence to print money'. In Britain the phrase became welded to commercial television: the Manchester Guardian used it on 8 July 1958 after Associated Television posted a pre-tax profit of over 3.6 million pounds, and it is forever linked to Roy Thomson of Fleet, granted the Scottish Television franchise on 30 May 1956, who said the licence was 'like a permit to print money' - the tidier wording quoted in Parliament in 1969 may improve on what he actually said, and the BBC notes the famous line is possibly misquoted. The British spelling is licence, with license in American use; the shorter verb 'to print money', meaning to make easy profits, is older still.
Research Sources
References used to check this entry’s meaning, history, or documented forms.
Variants
- a license to print money
- a permit to print money
- printing money
Usage Examples
- Critics called the airport's only coffee concession a licence to print money, given the prices and the captive passengers.
- Owning the sole testing laboratory in the region had turned out to be a licence to print money.
- A fixed-fee contract with no penalty for delays is practically a licence to print money for the contractor.