Other forms: visas
A visa is the official permission, usually stamped or stuck in a passport, allowing you to enter a country. A tourist visa, apply for a visa, the visa expired.
The main kinds are tourist, student, work and transit visas, and each has its own conditions and duration. Visa on arrival means you get it at the border; visa-free means you need none at all. Overstaying a visa is a serious matter and affects later applications. Note that a visa permits you to travel to the border and ask to enter — the officer at the desk still decides, which surprises many travellers.
1nounvisaOfficial permission to enter a country, marked in a passport.
“The visa took eleven weeks and arrived two days before the flight.”
visa is an official permission.
Latin charta visa meant a paper that has been seen, from videre, to see. A visa is literally the mark left by an official who has looked at your document, which is exactly what the stamp still is.
Latin
charta vīsa — paper that has been seen
French
visa
English, today
visa
From 1831, "official signature or endorsement on a passport," from French visa, from Latin charta vīsa (“paper that has been seen”) from feminine perfect passive of Latin video (“to see”). Compare vision, video, vista.
Etymology from Wiktionary, CC BY-SA