ADJECTIVE (2)

1. not preventive;

2. granting or inclined or able to grant permission; not strict in discipline;
- Example: "direct primary legislation is largely permissive rather than prescriptive"
- Example: "permissive parents"

The Collaborative International Dictionary of English v.0.48:

Permissive \Per*mis"sive\ (p[~e]r*m[i^]s"s[i^]v), a.
   1. Permitting; granting leave or liberty. "By his permissive
      will." --Milton.
      [1913 Webster]

   2. Permitted; tolerated; suffered. --Milton.
      [1913 Webster]

WordNet (r) 3.0 (2006):

permissive
    adj 1: not preventive [ant: preventative, preventive]
    2: granting or inclined or able to grant permission; not strict
       in discipline; "direct primary legislation is largely
       permissive rather than prescriptive"; "permissive parents"
       [ant: unpermissive]

Moby Thesaurus II by Grady Ward, 1.0:

107 Moby Thesaurus words for "permissive":
   accommodating, accordant, acquiescent, admissive, affable,
   affirmative, agreeable, agreeing, allowing, amiable, approving,
   assenting, benevolent, benign, benignant, broad-minded, careless,
   complaisant, compliable, compliant, conditional, consentient,
   consenting, content, culpably negligent, decent, derelict, eager,
   easy, easygoing, endorsing, favorable, freethinking, generous,
   gracious, imperative, impotent, imprecise, inadvertent,
   inattentive, indicative, indifferent, indulgent, jussive, kind,
   kindly, laissez-faire, latitudinarian, lax, lenient, liberal,
   libertarian, libertine, loose, mode, mood, neglectful, neglecting,
   negligent, noninterfering, nonprohibitive, nonrestrictive,
   nothing loath, obligative, obliging, off-guard, open-minded,
   optative, overindulgent, overly permissive, overpermissive,
   permitting, potential, procrastinating, prompt, ratifying, ready,
   relaxed, remiss, sanctioning, scamping, skimping, slack, slighting,
   slipshod, sloppy, slurring, soft, subjunctive, submissive,
   suffering, tolerant, tolerating, unbigoted, uncircumspect,
   ungrudging, unguarded, unloath, unprohibitive, unrefusing,
   unreluctant, unrestrained, unrigorous, unwary, unwatchful, weak,
   willing



Bouvier's Law Dictionary, Revised 6th Ed (1856):

PERMISSIVE. Allowed; that which may be done; as permissive waste, which is
the permitting real estate to go to waste; when a tenant is bound to repair
he is punishable for permissive waste. 2 Bouv. Inst. n. 2400. See Waste.