Brewer's: Admittance

Licence. Shakespeare says. “Sir John, you are a gentleman of excellent breeding, of great admittance” —i.e., to whom great freedom is allowed (Merry Wives, ii.2). The allusion is to an obsolete custom called admission, by which a prince avowed another prince to be under his protection. Maximilian, Emperor of Mexico, was the “admittant” of the Emperor Napoleon III.

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