Allowance

Pronunciation

• IPA: /əˈlaÊŠÉ™ns/

Alternative forms

• allowaunce obsolete

Origin

Old French alouance.

Full definition of allowance

Noun

1. The act of allowing, granting, conceding, or admitting; authorization; permission; sanction; tolerance.
• Without the king's will or the state's allowance. --William Shakespeare
2. Acknowledgment.
• The censure of the which one must in your allowance overweigh a whole theater of others. --William Shakespeare
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, as of food or drink; hence, a limited quantity of meat and drink, when provisions fall short.
• I can give the boy a handsome allowance. -- William Makepeace Thackeray.
4. Abatement; deduction; the taking into account of mitigating circumstances; as, to make allowance for the inexperience of youth.
• After making the largest allowance for fraud. -- Thomas Babington Macaulay.
5. (commerce) A customary deduction from the gross weight of goods, different in different countries, such as tare and tret.
6. A child's allowance; pocket money.She gives her daughters each an allowance of thirty dollars a month.
7. (obsolete) approval; approbation
8. (obsolete) license; indulgence

Synonyms

• (money) stipend

Verb

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