Greenlight

//ˈɡɹiːnlaɪt// verb, slang

verb, slang ·Moderate ·College level

Definitions

Verb
  1. 1
    To approve; to permit to proceed. idiomatic, informal, transitive

    "Labour's Shadow Chancellor Anneliese Dodds hit back at Sunak and said that his failure to greenlight major projects such as Northern Powerhouse Rail showed that government claims of levelling up the country were "not supported by the evidence"."

  2. 2
    to allow a project (especially a TV show) to go ahead wordnet
  3. 3
    To approve or requisition the harming or death of; to put a hit out on. idiomatic, slang, transitive

Synonyms

All synonyms
allowallowapprovegive the go-aheadgive the green lightok

Example

More examples

"Labour's Shadow Chancellor Anneliese Dodds hit back at Sunak and said that his failure to greenlight major projects such as Northern Powerhouse Rail showed that government claims of levelling up the country were "not supported by the evidence"."

Etymology

From green light.

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Data sourced from Wiktionary, WordNet, CMU, and other open linguistic databases. Updated March 2026.