date et visa

20:55 Aug 31, 2010 

My experience of working in the EU Commission was that a document authorising something (e.g. a payment) sometimes had to be stamped "visé" by as many as 4 or 5 different officials, so it by no means a final authority per se. The sense is really that visé means "passed" imho.

13:02 Aug 28, 2010 

thinking on, the description I've given above is more that of the French paraphe. The dictionary to hand gives VISA Sceau, signature ou paraphe apposés sur un document pour le valider ou pour attester le paiement d'un droit. So strictly speaking it's a "mark of approval", and "signature" would be its cultural equivalent (as in Asian countries their stylized rubber stamps would be).

12:42 Aug 28, 2010 

Indeed, a sacred French symbol, symbolising "permission granted" or "look, I am important enough to have a visa all of my own": the practice persists in the EU institutions

12:38 Aug 28, 2010 

It seems to me that the French have a greater propensity than the Anglo-Saxo-Celtic to use a "mark" rather than a "proper" signature. They cultivate squarish "scrawls" that resemble Asian ideograms more than "our" linear signatures. We, on the other hand, when we want to be quick, will "initial" something, but that is a thing the French tend not to do. So visa is a personal "mark" somewhere between signature and initials, functioning as a signature but taking a form more akin to initials.

11:58 Aug 28, 2010 

There is a date, a stamp and signature. Thank you!

09:54 Aug 28, 2010 

As writeaway has made apparent, my answer was perhaps a bit hasty and you really need to give more information about the content and purpose of the form. Otherwise, we don't know whether this is a visa (for a passport) or an endorsing stamp or form of words. You should not call it a "stamp" unless you know that is what it is. E.g. the handwritten words "lu et approuvé" could also be defined as a "visa" or it could be the date of a "visa pour timbre".

09:36 Aug 28, 2010 

is what it means. nothing more complicated than that