placet
(ˈpleɪsɛt)
[a. L. placet ‘it pleases’, 3rd sing. pres. ind. of placēre to please.]
‖ 1. The Latin for ‘it pleases (me or us)’.
The word is part of the form used in the old Universities when a question is put to the vote: ‘Placetne vobis, domini doctores? placetne vobis, magistri?’ (Does it please you, Doctors? does it please you, Masters?); the answer being ‘Placet’, or ‘Non placet’. The declaration of the vote after a count is in the form, ‘Majori parti placet’, or ‘non placet’, as the case may be. It is also in the power of the Vice-Chancellor, or of the Proctors conjointly, to veto any proposal by their ‘Non placet’, as in quot. 1893.
| c 1592 Marlowe Massacre Paris ii. vi. Wks. (Rtldg.) 240/1 Whilst I cry placet, like a senator. 1893 Liddon, etc. Life Pusey I. xvi. 378 Amidst a tremendous shout of ‘Placet’ from the area the decisive formula was uttered, ‘Nobis procuratoribus non placet’ [Us, the proctors, it pleases not], and the question of the statute was for the time at an end. |
2. as n. a. The expression of assent or sanction (by this word); formerly, the assent of the temporal power necessary for the publication and execution of an ecclesiastical ordinance. Also transf. and fig.
| 1589 Nashe Pref. Greene's Menaphon (Arb.) 5 Whose placet he accounts the plaudite of his paines. 1593 tr. Guicciardini's Descr. Low-C. 21 b, The pope cannot giue a benefice, nor a pardon, nor send a bull into the countrey without the Princes Placet. 1871 [see availingly adv.]. 1937 F. Borkenau Spanish Cockpit i. 42 He had simply been commander of the Barcelona garrison, and for his coup d'état had got the placet of the other generals. 1973 Times Lit. Suppl. 1 June 618/4 He was consecrated in 1583 [as Bishop of Kythera] but the Venetians refused him their placet. |
b. A vote of assent in a council, or in the congregation or convocation of a university.
| 1883 Manch. Exam. 1 Dec. 4/7 The report..was rejected by 40 non-placets to 39 placets. 1905 Daily News 6 Mar. 6 ‘Why should the University be ruled from the country parishes?’..was asked again by the ‘placet’ party. |
† 3. erron. for placit, q.v.