Learn English – What does “get to” mean

ambiguityword-choice

I know there are a lot of meanings to the verb "get", so I am unable to understand which one is used in the following sentence:

They had a baby which was different, so it got to live.

I know that "get to" can be:

  • allowed to,
  • have a chance to, or
  • become (eventually)

But neither works for me. Maybe the first one would make sense. Or should it be "have got to"? That would make sense, but I thought I had to use it with "have".

Best Answer

Your first idea already matches perfectly.

They had a baby which was different, so it got to live.

This could be written as:

They had a baby which was different, so it had a chance to live.


"have got" indicates possession of some sort, so in this case it doesn't apply. The baby can not "possess" the verb "living". You can only possess something. In this case, you could of course use "chance to" as the noun here:

They had a baby which was different, so it had gotten a chance to live.

However, this sounds way too complicated in my opinion.