allowance

English

Alternative forms

• allowaunce (obsolete)

Etymology

From Middle English allouance, from Old French alouance.

Morphologically allow +‎ -ance.

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): /əˈlaʊəns/

• Audio (US):

  (file)

Noun

allowance (countable and uncountable, plural allowances)

1. 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

2. Acknowledgment.
   • c. 1599–1602 (date written), William Shakespeare, “The Tragedie of Hamlet, Prince of Denmarke”, in Mr. William Shakespeares Comedies, Histories, & Tragedies […] (First Folio), London: […] Isaac Iaggard, and Ed[ward] Blount, published 1623, →OCLC, [Act III, scene ii]:

     The censure of the which one must in your allowance overweigh a whole theater of others.

3. 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.

   • 1847 January – 1848 July, William Makepeace Thackeray, Vanity Fair […], London: Bradbury and Evans […], published 1848, →OCLC:

     Some persons averred that Sir Pitt Crawley gave his brother a handsome allowance.

4. Abatement; deduction; the taking into account of mitigating circumstances

   to make allowance for his naivety

   • 1849–1861, Thomas Babington Macaulay, The History of England from the Accession of James the Second, volumes (please specify |volume=I to V), London: Longman, Brown, Green, and Longmans, →OCLC:

     After making the largest allowance for fraud.

5. (commerce) A customary deduction from the gross weight of goods, differing by country.

   Tare and tret are examples of allowance.

6. (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.

7. A child's allowance; pocket money.

   She gives her daughters each an allowance of thirty dollars a month.

8. (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.
9. (obsolete) Approval; approbation.
   • 1807, George Crabbe, The Parish Register:

     […] gave allowance where he needed none

10. (obsolete) License; indulgence.
    • 1695, John Locke, The Reasonableness of Christianity:

      this Allowance for their Transgressions

11. (engineering) A planned deviation between an exact dimension and a nominal or theoretical dimension.

Synonyms

• (act of allowing): authorization, permission, sanction, tolerance.
• (money): stipend
• (minting): remedy, tolerance

Derived terms

• attendance allowance
• cost-of-living disallowance
• depreciation allowance
• disallowance
• emission allowance
• family allowance
• field allowance
• Jobseeker's Allowance
• misallowance
• monkey's allowance
• personal allowance
• seam allowance
• separation allowance
• travel allowance

 

Descendants

• → Cebuano: alawans
• → Malay: élaun

Translations

the act of allowing, granting, conceding, or admitting; authorization; permission; sanction; tolerance

• Bulgarian: разрешение (bg) (razrešenie), позволение (bg) (pozvolenie), допускане (dopuskane)
• Chinese:

  Mandarin: 允许 (zh)

• Finnish: salliminen (fi)
• German: Erlaubnis (de) f
• Italian: permesso (it) m, concessione (it) f, delibera (it) f
• Malayalam: അനുമതി (ml) (anumati)
• Odia: ଅନୁମତି (anumati)
• Portuguese: permissão (pt) f
• Romanian: permisiune (ro) f, încuviințare (ro) f, permitere (ro) f
• Russian: разреше́ние (ru) n (razrešénije), позволе́ние (ru) n (pozvolénije), до́пуск (ru) m (dópusk), допуще́ние (ru) n (dopuščénije)
• Scottish Gaelic: cuibhreann m
• Swedish: tillåtelse (sv)
• Ukrainian: до́звіл (uk) m (dózvil)

acknowledgment

• Bulgarian: признаване (bg) (priznavane)
• Finnish: hyväksyntä (fi), myöntäminen (fi)
• Romanian: recunoaștere (ro) f
• Russian: приня́тие (ru) n (prinjátije), призна́ние (ru) n (priznánije)
• Scottish Gaelic: cuibhreann m

that which is allowed

• Finnish: määräraha (fi), päiväraha (fi), annos (fi)
• French: indemnité (fr) f
• Italian: razione (it) f
• Japanese: 給与 (ja) (kyūyo), こずかい (kozukai)
• Portuguese: permissão (pt) f
• Russian: посо́бие (ru) n (posóbije)

abatement; deduction; the taking into account of mitigating circumstances

• Bulgarian: отстъпка (bg) (otstǎpka), вземане предвид (vzemane predvid)
• Finnish: varaus (fi)
• Hungarian: elnézés (hu)
• Indonesian: tunjangan (id)
• Italian: attenuante (it) f, sgravio (it) m
• Malay: elaun
• Portuguese: atenuante (pt) f
• Russian: приня́тие во внима́ние n (prinjátije vo vnimánije), попра́вка (ru) f (poprávka), ски́дка (ru) n (skídka), льго́та (ru) f (lʹgóta)
• Scottish Gaelic: cuibhreann m
• Spanish: paga (es) f

a customary deduction from the gross weight of goods

• Bulgarian: отстъпка (bg) (otstǎpka)
• Dutch: toestemming (nl)
• Finnish: myönnytys

a child's allowance; pocket money — see pocket money

a planned deviation between dimensions

• Dutch: speling (nl) f
• Finnish: vara (fi), välys
• French: jeu (fr) m

an amount that is granted

• Spanish: propina (es) f (Peru), viático (es) m, asignación (es) f, mesada (es) f, pitanza (es) f

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

• Irish: ^{(please verify)} liúntas m

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

• “allowance”, in Webster’s Revised Unabridged Dictionary, Springfield, Mass.: G. & C. Merriam, 1913, →OCLC.