Other forms: authorized, authorizing, authorizes
To authorize is to give official permission. Authorize the payment, authorized personnel only, who authorized this.
This is the American spelling; British English accepts authorize and authorise. Authorized personnel only is the standard sign. In banking, authorizing a payment is the step that reserves the money. Note authorization; authorized version, which is the King James Bible; and that unauthorized is the word on about every warning notice, meaning done by somebody who had no permission to do it.
authorize is a giving of permission.
Also accepted in games: authorise, permit
Medieval Latin auctorizare comes from auctor, an originator — the same root as author and authority. Authorizing something is putting the author's weight behind it.
Proto-Indo-European
*h₂ewg-
Latin
auctor
Medieval Latin
auctorizo
Old French
auctorisier
Middle English
auctorisen
English, today
authorize
From Middle English auctorisen, from Old French auctorisier, from Medieval Latin auctorizo, from Latin auctor. See author about the orthography with h. a doublet of octroy.
Etymology from Wiktionary, CC BY-SA