licet

Licet, licere, licuit is an IMPERSONAL verb. It has no personal subject and appears only in the third person singular, licet, licebat, licuit, licebit, with the infinitive that follows serving as its real subject: licet ire is "to go is permitted".

The person allowed goes in the DATIVE. Mihi licet ire, militibus non licuit exire. Where an adjective describes that person it can be pulled into the dative to agree, licet mihi esse otioso, "I am allowed to be at leisure", though the accusative also occurs. This is the standard behaviour of the impersonals as a group: licet, libet, placet, oportet and necesse est all put the person somewhere other than the nominative, and getting into the habit early saves a lot of confusion later.

Its second life is as a concessive CONJUNCTION meaning "although", taking the subjunctive. That grew out of "granted that, it is allowed that" and is common from the Augustan poets onwards and everywhere in later Latin. It stands alongside quamvis, quamquam and etsi. English took licence, licit, illicit and, through French loisir, leisure.