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allowance

Pronunciation: /əˈlaʊəns/

The English word “allowance” has 14 meanings listed here.

noun

  1. Permission; granting, conceding, or admitting.
  2. Acknowledgment.
  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.
  4. Such a sum or portion granted to a family member or familiar, especially one's own child; pocket money for such a person.
  5. Abatement; deduction; the taking into account of mitigating circumstances.
  6. A deduction from the gross weight of goods, such as to discount their container's weight or per a custom differing by country.
  7. A permitted reduction in the weight that a racehorse must carry.
  8. 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. Approval; approbation.
  10. License; indulgence.
  11. A sum of money allotted to a wife for her separate maintenance, especially alimony granted upon a legal separation or divorce.
  12. A planned deviation between an exact dimension and a nominal or theoretical dimension.

verb

  1. To put upon a fixed allowance (especially of provisions and drink).
  2. To supply in a fixed and limited quantity.

Etymology

From Middle English allouance, from Old French alouance. Morphologically allow + -ance.

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Definitions are from Wiktionary, extracted by Kaikki.org, and are available under the CC BY-SA 4.0 licence.