allowance

English

Alternative forms

Etymology

From Middle English allouance, from Old French alouance.

Morphologically allow +‎ -ance.

Pronunciation

  • IPA(key): /əˈlaʊəns/
  • Audio (US):(file)
  • Hyphenation: al‧low‧ance

Noun

allowance (countable and uncountable, plural allowances)

  2. Permission; granting, conceding, or admitting.
    • 1613 (date written), William Shakespeare, [John Fletcher], “The Famous History of the Life of King Henry the Eight”, in Mr. William Shakespeares Comedies, Histories, & Tragedies […] (First Folio), London: […] Isaac Iaggard, and Ed[ward] Blount, published 1623, →OCLC, [Act III, scene ii]:
      you sent a large commission to Gregory de Cassado, to conclude, without the King's will or the state's allowance
    • 1986, Special Committee on Aging, United States Senate, Hazards in reuse of disposable dialysis devices: staff report to the Special Committee on Aging, United States Senate‎[1], U.S. Government Printing Office, page 272:
      [Mr. Michie] Q[uestion]. Didn't Dr. Carter, Director of the OHTA [Office of Health Technology Assessment], and Martin Erlichman, OHTA scientific analyst assigned to this assessment, express to you concerns about 60 days being unreasonable as far as timeframe was concerned for this assessment? [Mr. Marshall] A[nswer]. There was some discussion about that, but that occurred some time later when we made the decision to put a notice in the Federal Register. We—when we do an assessment, we put a notice in the Federal Register and then that requires the allowance of a certain amount of time for public comment.
    • 1991, Klaas van't Riet, Johannes Tramper, Basic Bioreactor Design‎[2], CRC Press, →ISBN, page 286:
      The physical background of foaming of the complex fermentation liquids is not well understood. Proteins do play a major role, but all other components can also be important. Foaming is a problem, but its relation to mass transfer leads to the allowance of a certain amount of foam on top of the fermenter. For foam control a number of methods are available. Most widely used are the antifoam liquids and the centrifugal separator. The latter one should be equipped with a safety antifoam dosage device also and is less attractive for large-scale applications.
    • 1991 February 4, David Lafontaine, Patrick Ward, “Why Our Future Is In The GOP”, in Gay Community News‎[3], volume 18, number 28, page 5:
      The colossal stupidity of the one-party strategy has had three disastrous effects: the nurturance of right-wing Republican homophobes, the weakening and silencing of pro-gay, progressive Republicans, and the allowance of lacklustrer[sic], liberal Democrats to exploit us at their will and ignore us at their convenience.
  4. Acknowledgment.
  6. An amount, portion, or share that is allotted or granted; a sum granted as a reimbursement, a bounty, or as appropriate for any purpose.
    her meagre allowance of food or drink
    Being a volunteer is unpaid, but we get accommodation and a living allowance of 100 euros a week.
    1. Such a sum or portion granted to a family member or familiar, especially one's own child; pocket money for such a person.
      She gives her daughters each an allowance of thirty dollars a month.
  8. Abatement; deduction; the taking into account of mitigating circumstances.
    to make allowance for his naivety
  10. (commerce) A deduction from the gross weight of goods, such as to discount their container's weight or per a custom differing by country.
    Hyponyms: tare, tret
    Minus the allowance, the total came to thirteen tons.
  12. (horse racing) A permitted reduction in the weight that a racehorse must carry.
    Antonym: penalty
    On the Flat, an apprentice jockey starts with an allowance of 7 lb.
  13. (minting) A permissible deviation in the fineness and weight of coins, owing to the difficulty in securing exact conformity to the standard prescribed by law.
  14. (obsolete) Approval; approbation.
    • 1807, George Crabbe, The Parish Register:
      […] gave allowance where he needed none
  15. (obsolete) License; indulgence.
    • 1695, John Locke, The Reasonableness of Christianity:
      this Allowance for their Transgressions
  17. (engineering) A planned deviation between an exact dimension and a nominal or theoretical dimension.

Synonyms

Derived terms

Descendants

  • → Cebuano: alawans
  • → Malay: élaun

Translations

The translations below need to be checked and inserted above into the appropriate translation tables. See instructions at Wiktionary:Entry layout § Translations.
Translations to be checked

Verb

allowance (third-person singular simple present allowances, present participle allowancing, simple past and past participle allowanced)

  1. (transitive) To put upon a fixed allowance (especially of provisions and drink).
    The captain was obliged to allowance his crew.
  2. (transitive) To supply in a fixed and limited quantity.
    Our provisions were allowanced.

References

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