have a say

English

Alternative forms

• have one's say

Pronunciation

• Audio (General Australian):

  (file)

Verb

have a say (third-person singular simple present has a say, present participle having a say, simple past and past participle had a say)

1. (idiomatic, intransitive) To (receive the opportunity to) voice one's opinion.

   He didn't have a say in deciding where he and his family would go on vacation.

   • 2011 September 19, David Schmidtz, Jason Brennan, A Brief History of Liberty, John Wiley & Sons, →ISBN, page 1891:

     The essence of a democracy is not that people vote on whatever they want, but that every adult has a say in how he or she is governed.

   • 2016 January 8, Kevin Danaher, Shannon Biggs, Jason Mark, Building the Green Economy: Success Stories from the Grassroots, Routledge, →ISBN:

     We go to school and we go to work under conditions where people don't have a say in their day-to-day life; they don't have a say in the things that happen around them.

Translations

to voice one's opinion

• Dutch: inspraak hebben, in de melk te brokkelen hebben
• Finnish: sanoa sanansa
• French: avoir son mot à dire (fr), avoir voix au chapitre (fr)
• German: mitreden (de), Mitsprache haben, ein Wörtchen mitzureden haben
• Italian: avere voce in capitolo
• Polish: wyrażać opinię impf, wyrazić opinię pf
• Romanian: avea un cuvânt de spus
• Russian: име́ть пра́во го́лоса (imétʹ právo gólosa) (to be entitled to speak out), выска́зывать своё мне́ние impf (vyskázyvatʹ svojó mnénije), вы́сказать своё мне́ние pf (výskazatʹ svojó mnénije) (to express one's opinion)