Friday, October 2, 2015

word choice - What's the difference between "licensing" and "licensure?"

On the new Engineering SE, we field questions about professional engineering registration. The tag categorizing these questions is "licensure" and I usually find myself referring to the topic by that word but there are times when I feel like I should use "licensing" instead. I feel like the two words carry slightly different implications but I have trouble identifying the specific way in which they are different.




For example, I much prefer "licensure" here:




This question concerns professional licensure.




but it does not work here:





The Board for Professional Engineers is a licensing body.




and either seems to work here:




The organization deals with professional licensing issues.



The organization deals with issues of professional licensure.





Are these words synonyms? They don't seem to be equivalent in every formulation; how can I decide which is more appropriate for a given sentence?



I don't think this is directly related to the license/licence distinction.

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