licensee (n.)

c. 1400, "grant formal authorization to do what would be illegal to do without it," from licence (n.), which see for the modern attempt at differentiation of spelling. Related: Licensed; Licensing.

word-forming element in legal English (and in imitation of it), representing the Anglo-French -é ending of past participles used as nouns (compare -y (3)). As these sometimes were coupled with agent nouns in -or, the two suffixes came to be used as a pair to denote the initiator and the recipient of an action.

Not to be confused with the French -ée that is a feminine noun ending (as in fiancée), which is from Latin -ata.