the.com/licence

means An official document or permission granting you the legal right to do something you otherwise couldn't — drive, marry, sell liquor, practice medicine.

from From Latin 'licentia' (freedom, liberty to act), itself from 'licere' (to be allowed, to be lawful) — the same root that gives us 'illicit' for what isn't allowed. The word passed through Old French into English, and for centuries British English kept 'licence' for the noun and 'license' for the verb, a spelling distinction American English eventually flattened into 'license' for both. So the word has always meant permission — only the paperwork and the fee are later, bureaucratic additions.