English Online Dictionary. What means allowance? What does allowance mean?
English
Alternative forms
- allowaunce (obsolete)
Etymology
From Middle English allouance, from Old French alouance.
Morphologically allow + -ance.
Pronunciation
- IPA(key): /əˈlaʊəns/
Noun
allowance (countable and uncountable, plural allowances)
- Permission; granting, conceding, or admitting
- Acknowledgment.
- An amount, portion, or share that is allotted or granted; a sum granted as a reimbursement, a bounty, or as appropriate for any purpose
- Abatement; deduction; the taking into account of mitigating circumstances
- (commerce) A customary deduction from the gross weight of goods, differing by country.
- (horse racing) A permitted reduction in the weight that a racehorse must carry.
- Antonym: penalty
- A child's allowance; pocket money.
- (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.
- (obsolete) License; indulgence.
- (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
Descendants
- → Cebuano: alawans
- → Malay: élaun
Translations
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).
- (transitive) To supply in a fixed and limited quantity.
References
- “allowance”, in Webster’s Revised Unabridged Dictionary, Springfield, Mass.: G. & C. Merriam, 1913, →OCLC.