allowance Meaning, Definition & Usage

noun an amount allowed or granted (as during a given period)
- travel allowance
- my weekly allowance of two eggs
- a child's allowance should not be too generous
noun a sum granted as reimbursement for expenses
noun an amount added or deducted on the basis of qualifying circumstances
adjustment.
- an allowance for profit
noun a permissible difference; allowing some freedom to move within limits
tolerance; margin; leeway.
noun a reserve fund created by a charge against profits in order to provide for changes in the value of a company's assets
valuation reserve; allowance account; valuation account.
noun the act of allowing
- He objected to the allowance of smoking in the dining room
verb put on a fixed allowance, as of food

OF. alouance.

Approval; approbation. Obs. Crabbe.
The act of allowing, granting, conceding, or admitting; authorization; permission; sanction; tolerance.
Without the king's will or the state's allowance. Shak.
Acknowledgment.
The censure of the which one must in your allowance o'erweigh a whole theater of others. Shak.
License; indulgence. Obs. Locke.
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. Thackeray.
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. Macaulay.
(com.) A customary deduction from the gross weight of goods, different in different countries, such as tare and tret.

See Allowance, n.

imperfect & past participle Allowancing

To put upon a fixed allowance (esp. of provisions and drink); to supply in a fixed and limited quantity; as, the captain was obliged to allowance his crew; our provisions were allowanced.