Definition of "allowance"

allowance

/əˈlaʊəns/

noun
countable and uncountable, plural allowances
1. Permission; granting, conceding, or admitting
  Quotations
  you sent a large commission to Gregory de Cassado, to conclude, without the King's will or the state's allowance
  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, [Act III, scene ii]
2. Acknowledgment.
  Quotations
  The censure of the which one must in your allowance overweigh a whole theater of others.
  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, [Act III, scene ii]
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
  Quotations
  Some persons averred that Sir Pitt Crawley gave his brother a handsome allowance.
  1847 January – 1848 July, William Makepeace Thackeray, Vanity Fair […], London: Bradbury and Evans […], published 1848
4. Abatement; deduction; the taking into account of mitigating circumstances
  Quotations
  After making the largest allowance for fraud.
  1849–1861, Thomas Babington Macaulay, The History of England from the Accession of James the Second, volumes (please specify |volume=I to V), London: Longman, Brown, Green, and Longmans
5. (commerce) A customary deduction from the gross weight of goods, differing by country.
6. (horse racing) A permitted reduction in the weight that a racehorse must carry.
7. A child's allowance; pocket money.
8. (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.
9. (obsolete) Approval; approbation.
  Quotations
  […] gave allowance where he needed none
  1807, George Crabbe, The Parish Register
10. (obsolete) License; indulgence.
  Quotations
  this Allowance for their Transgressions
  1695, John Locke, The Reasonableness of Christianity
11. (engineering) A planned deviation between an exact dimension and a nominal or theoretical dimension.
verb
third-person singular simple present allowances, present participle allowancing, simple past and past participle allowanced
1. (transitive) To put upon a fixed allowance (especially of provisions and drink).
2. (transitive) To supply in a fixed and limited quantity.

Definition of "allowance"

allowance

noun

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verb