illicit.
Not approved by law, but not invalid.
Meaning & usage
Not approved by law, but not invalid.
The bigamous marriage, while illicit, was not invalid.
Breaking social norms.
Unlawful.
Where this word comes from
Borrowed from French illicite, from Latin illicitus, from in- (“not”) + licitus (“allowed, permitted”), from licet (“it is allowed”). By surface analysis, il- + licit.
A banned or unlawful item.
Where this word comes from
Borrowed from French illicite, from Latin illicitus, from in- (“not”) + licitus (“allowed, permitted”), from licet (“it is allowed”). By surface analysis, il- + licit.
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Definitions, grammatical labels, IPA, etymology and examples: Wiktionary contributors, extracted by Kaikki / Wiktextract. Adapted under CC BY-SA 4.0. Selected fields and authored examples are shown; third-party quotations and audio are omitted. See contributor history.
Last enriched 2026-09-10. Definitions are in English. Romanizations are shown when supplied by the source; syllable estimates are omitted for unsupported scripts.