allowance

English

Alternative forms

• allowaunce (obsolete)

Etymology

Borrowed from Old French alouance.

Pronunciation

• audio (US)

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• IPA^(key): /əˈlaʊəns/

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. That which is allowed; a share or portion allotted or granted; a sum granted as a reimbursement, a bounty, or as appropriate for any purpose; a stated quantity

   her meagre allowance of food or drink

   • 1848, William Makepeace Thackeray, Vanity Fair

     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

   • 1848, Thomas Babington Macaulay, The History of England from the Accession of James II

     After making the largest allowance for fraud.

5. (commerce) A customary deduction from the gross weight of goods, different in different countries

   Tare and tret are examples of allowance.

6. A child's allowance; pocket money.

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

7. (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.
8. (obsolete) approval; approbation

   (Can we find and add a quotation of Crabbe to this entry?)

9. (obsolete) license; indulgence

   (Can we find and add a quotation of John Locke to this entry?)

Synonyms

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

Derived terms

• attendance allowance
• disallowance
• field allowance
• Jobseeker's Allowance
• monkey's allowance
• seam allowance
• separation allowance

 

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
• Interlingue:
• Italian: permesso (it) m, concessione (it) f, delibera (it) f
• (deprecated template usage) {{trans-mid}}
• Oriya: ଅନୁମତି (ônumôti)
• 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)

acknowledgment

• Bulgarian: признаване (bg) (priznavane)
• Finnish: hyväksyntä (fi), myöntäminen (fi)
• Romanian: recunoaștere (ro) f
• (deprecated template usage) {{trans-mid}}
• Russian: приня́тие (ru) n (prinjátije), призна́ние (ru) n (priznánije)
• Scottish Gaelic: cuibhreann m

that which is allowed

• Finnish: määräraha (fi), päiväraha (fi), annos (fi)
• Italian: razione (it) f
• Japanese: 給与 (ja) (kyūyo), こずかい (kozukai)
• (deprecated template usage) {{trans-mid}}
• 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)
• Interlingue:
• Italian: attenuante (it) f, sgravio (it) m
• (deprecated template usage) {{trans-mid}}
• 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
• (deprecated template usage) {{trans-mid}}
• French: pension alimentaire (fr) m
• Irish: airgead póca m
• Polish: kieszonkowe (pl) n

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

• Irish: ^{(please verify)} liúntas m
• (deprecated template usage) {{trans-mid}}

Part or all of this entry has been imported from the 1913 edition of Webster’s Dictionary, which is now free of copyright and hence in the public domain. The imported definitions may be significantly out of date, and any more recent senses may be completely missing.
(See the entry for “allowance”, in Webster’s Revised Unabridged Dictionary, Springfield, Mass.: G. & C. Merriam, 1913, →OCLC.)

Verb

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.