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View synonyms for poetic license

poetic license

noun

  1. license or liberty taken by a poet, prose writer, or other artist in deviating from rule, conventional form, logic, or fact, in order to produce a desired effect.


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Word History and Origins

Origin of poetic license1

First recorded in 1780–90
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Idioms and Phrases

Also, artistic license . The liberty taken by a writer or artist in deviating from conventional form or fact to achieve an effect. For example, I've never seen grass or a tree of that color; but that's artistic license . [Late 1700s]
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Example Sentences

Every designer deserves a degree of poetic license, leeway to shock and provoke.

I have taken very little "poetic license" with their traditions; none, whatever, with their customs and superstitions.

Poetry uses great freedom, called poetic license, in the order of words and construction of sentences.

The numbers given here are an instance of the poetic license.

While they may have employed a poetic license in their construction, the facts themselves were not lost out of sight.

Of course, he hadnt really any right to act proprietary; it was taking a certain poetic license with the situation.

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Definitions and idiom definitions from Dictionary.com Unabridged, based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2023

Idioms from The American Heritage® Idioms Dictionary copyright © 2002, 2001, 1995 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company.

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poetic licencepoetics