allowance
Language: English
Part of speech: noun
Pronunciation: ipa: /əˈlaʊəns/
Forms: form: allowances
form: allowaunce
Etymology: From Middle English allouance, from Old French alouance. Morphologically allow + -ance.
Senses: examples: text: you sent a large commission to Gregory de Cassado, to conclude, without the King's will or the state's allowance
ref: 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]:
text: [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.
ref: 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, U.S. Government Printing Office, page 272:
text: 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.
ref: 1991, Klaas van't Riet, Johannes Tramper, Basic Bioreactor Design, CRC Press, →ISBN, page 286:
text: 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.
ref: 1991 February 4, David Lafontaine, Patrick Ward, “Why Our Future Is In The GOP”, in Gay Community News, volume 18, number 28, page 5:
glosses: Permission; granting, conceding, or admitting.
examples: text: The censure of the which one must in your allowance overweigh a whole theater of others.
ref: 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]:
glosses: Acknowledgment.
examples: text: her meagre allowance of food or drink
text: Being a volunteer is unpaid, but we get accommodation and a living allowance of 100 euros a week.
glosses: An amount, portion, or share that is allotted or granted; a sum granted as a reimbursement, a bounty, or as appropriate for any purpose.
examples: text: She gives her daughters each an allowance of thirty dollars a month.
text: Some persons averred that Sir Pitt Crawley gave his brother a handsome allowance.
ref: 1847 January – 1848 July, William Makepeace Thackeray, Vanity Fair […], London: Bradbury and Evans […], published 1848, →OCLC:
glosses: An amount, portion, or share that is allotted or granted; a sum granted as a reimbursement, a bounty, or as appropriate for any purpose.
Such a sum or portion granted to a family member or familiar, especially one's own child; pocket money for such a person.
examples: text: to make allowance for his naivety
text: After making the largest allowance for fraud.
ref: 1849–1861, Thomas Babington Macaulay, The History of England from the Accession of James the Second, volume (please specify |volume=I to V), London: Longman, Brown, Green, and Longmans, →OCLC:
glosses: Abatement; deduction; the taking into account of mitigating circumstances.
examples: text: Minus the allowance, the total came to thirteen tons.
topics: business
commerce
glosses: A deduction from the gross weight of goods, such as to discount their container's weight or per a custom differing by country.
examples: text: On the Flat, an apprentice jockey starts with an allowance of 7 lb.
topics: hobbies
horse-racing
horseracing
horses
lifestyle
pets
racing
sports
antonyms: penalty
glosses: A permitted reduction in the weight that a racehorse must carry.
qualifier: minting
glosses: A permissible deviation in the fineness and weight of coins, owing to the difficulty in securing exact conformity to the standard prescribed by law.
examples: text: […]gave allowance where he needed none
ref: 1807, George Crabbe, The Parish Register:
glosses: Approval; approbation.
examples: text: this Allowance for their Transgressions
ref: 1695, John Locke, The Reasonableness of Christianity:
glosses: License; indulgence.
topics: engineering
natural-sciences
physical-sciences
glosses: A planned deviation between an exact dimension and a nominal or theoretical dimension.
Synonyms: sense: act of allowing
word: authorization
sense: act of allowing
word: permission
sense: act of allowing
word: sanction
sense: act of allowing
word: tolerance
topics: money
finance
business
word: stipend
sense: minting
word: remedy
sense: minting
word: 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