allowance

English

Alternative forms

allowaunce (obsolete)

Etymology

From Middle English allouance, from Old French alouance.

Morphologically allow +‎ -ance.

Pronunciation

audio (US) (file)
IPA^(key): /əˈlaʊəns/

Noun

allowance (countable and uncountable, plural allowances)

Permission; granting, conceding, or admitting
- 1613, 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 606515358, [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
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 606515358, [Act III, scene ii]:
  The censure of the which one must in your allowance overweigh a whole theater of others.
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 3174108:
  Some persons averred that Sir Pitt Crawley gave his brother a handsome allowance.
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, volume (please specify |volume=I to V), London: Longman, Brown, Green, and Longmans, OCLC 1069526323:
  After making the largest allowance for fraud.
(commerce) A customary deduction from the gross weight of goods, differing by country.
Tare and tret are examples of allowance.
(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.
A child's allowance; pocket money.
She gives her daughters each an allowance of thirty dollars a month.
(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.
(obsolete) Approval; approbation.
- 1807, George Crabbe, The Parish Register
  […] gave allowance where he needed none
(obsolete) License; indulgence.
- 1695, John Locke, The Reasonableness of Christianity
  this Allowance for their Transgressions
(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
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)
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
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
Irish: airgead póca m
Polish: kieszonkowe (pl) n

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

a planned deviation between dimensions

Finnish: vara (fi), välys
French: jeu (fr) m

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)

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

References

allowance in Webster’s Revised Unabridged Dictionary, G. & C. Merriam, 1913