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🆓 Unlimited freedom ✍️ Unsigned amount 🏢 A shell company
blank check

blank check

1 3.7
A signed piece of paper from a bank with the amount left empty for someone to fill
  • noun
  • /blæŋk tʃɛk/
  • US
translation icon : cheque en blanco
  • Lawyers may have quoted a fee in good faith, but the client does not want to write a blank check.
  • sign a blank check
  • write a blank check

Examples

  • Sign a blank check and hand it to him.

    Blog text (14)

  • A veteran is someone who, at one point in his life, wrote a blank check.

    Blog text (32)

  • Even though, even though, Sir Arsenio Hall lost a blank check from Jay Leno, the public has his right to know.

  • She gave him a blank check so he could decide how much to pay for the repairs.

  • The manager signed a blank check for the charity event, trusting the organizers to fill in the right amount.

  • He handed over a blank check to complete the donation at the auction.

Synonyms

counter check
vsblank check
  • Specialized
6.5

A blank check the bank gives you to get money when your personal checks are not available

is signed beforehand so the holder can fill any amount

Surface Forms

blank check singular
blank checks plural

Morphology

blank + check

Although the literal words 'blank' (empty) and 'check' (bank order) can suggest a signed but unfilled cheque and therefore the general idiom of giving someone unrestricted authority, the supplied definition refers to a specialised financial instrument (a SPAC). That technical meaning is not transparently derivable from the constituents by a B1 learner who knows the words, so the MWE functions as an opaque, domain-specific term in this sense.

Etymology

Blank check originally meant a real check that someone had signed but left the amount blank, so the person holding it could write in any number. So it refers to 'a signed check with the amount not filled in'.