have a say

• have one's say

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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.