• IPA: /əˈlaʊəns/

allowance

1. 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: Published According to the True Originall Copies (First Folio), London: Printed by 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

2. Acknowledgment.
   • c. 1599–1602, William Shakespeare, “The Tragedie of Hamlet, Prince of Denmarke”, in Mr. William Shakespeares Comedies, Histories, & Tragedies: Published According to the True Originall Copies (First Folio), London: Printed by 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.

3. 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

   her meagre allowance of food or drink

   • 1848, William Makepeace Thackeray, Vanity Fair

     Some persons averred that Sir Pitt Crawley gave his brother a handsome allowance.

4. Abatement; deduction; the taking into account of mitigating circumstances

   to make allowance for his naivety

   • 1848, Thomas Babington Macaulay, The History of England from the Accession of James II

     After making the largest allowance for fraud.

5. (commerce) A customary deduction from the gross weight of goods, different in different countries

   Tare and tret are examples of allowance.

6. A child's allowance; pocket money.

   She gives her daughters each an allowance of thirty dollars a month.

7. (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.
8. (obsolete) approval; approbation
9. (obsolete) license; indulgence

• (act of allowing) authorization, permission, sanction, tolerance.
• (money) stipend
• (minting) remedy, tolerance

• German: Erlaubnis
• Italian: permesso, concessione, delibera
• Portuguese: permissão
• Russian: разреше́ние

• Russian: приня́тие

• Italian: razione
• Portuguese: permissão
• Russian: посо́бие

• Italian: attenuante, sgravio
• Portuguese: atenuante
• Russian: приня́тие во внима́ние
• Spanish: paga

• French: pension alimentaire

allowance (allowances, present participle allowancing; past and past participle allowanced)

1. (transitive) To put upon a fixed allowance (especially of provisions and drink).

   The captain was obliged to allowance his crew.

2. (transitive) To supply in a fixed and limited quantity.

   Our provisions were allowanced.