allowance
Americannoun
-
the act of allowing.
-
an amount or share allotted or granted.
- Synonyms:
- allotment
-
a sum of money allotted or granted for a particular purpose, as for expenses.
Her allowance for the business trip was $200.
-
a sum of money allotted or granted to a person on a regular basis, as for personal or general living expenses.
The art student lived on an allowance of $600 a month.
When I was in first grade, my parents gave me an allowance of seven dollars a week.
- Synonyms:
- stipend
-
an addition or deduction based on an extenuating or qualifying circumstance.
an allowance for profit;
an allowance for depreciation.
-
acknowledgment; concession.
the allowance of a claim.
-
passive permission resulting from lack of interference; toleration.
the allowance of slavery.
- Synonyms:
- sufferance, permission, acceptance
- Antonyms:
- proscription, prohibition, interdiction
-
Machinery. a prescribed difference in dimensions of two closely fitting mating parts with regard to minimum clearance or maximum interference.
-
Coining. tolerance.
verb (used with object)
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to place on a fixed allowance, as of food or drink.
-
to allocate (supplies, rations, etc.) in fixed or regular amounts.
idioms
noun
-
an amount of something, esp money or food, given or allotted usually at regular intervals
-
a discount, as in consideration for something given in part exchange or to increase business; rebate
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(in Britain) an amount of a person's income that is not subject to a particular tax and is therefore deducted before his or her liability to taxation is assessed
-
a portion set aside to compensate for something or to cover special expenses
-
education a salary supplement given to a teacher who is appointed to undertake extra duties and responsibilities
-
admission; concession
-
the act of allowing; sanction; toleration
-
something allowed
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(usually foll by for)
-
to take mitigating circumstances into account in consideration (of)
-
to allow (for)
-
verb
Other Word Forms
Derived Forms
Inflected Forms
Nouns
Etymology
Origin of allowance
1350–1400; Middle English alouance < Middle French. See allow, -ance
Explanation
When you're a kid, you might earn an allowance or a sum of money in exchange for doing chores around the house. Your parents' allowance — or tolerance — of your silly behavior will depend on how strict they are. An allowance is a quantity of something that's allowed or permitted within a set of rules or for a particular purpose. This could be a weekly allowance you earn as a kid, or it could be the allowance for passengers on a flight to have two carry-on items. To make allowances for someone means to treat someone leniently, or to give them a break.
Vocabulary lists containing allowance
Christopher Columbus' Diary: The First Voyage
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"Principles of Business," Vocabulary from Chapter 16
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Shiloh
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Example Sentences
Examples are provided to illustrate real-world usage of words in context. Any opinions expressed do not reflect the views of Dictionary.com.
See Examples For:
Successive Thai governments have debated raising a universal old-age allowance that currently amounts to between $18 and $35 a month, but eventually discarded the idea for cost reasons.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Jul. 26, 2026
The three scrape by on the $90 Boonma receives each month for her work, her parents’ combined $50 old-age allowance from the government and money sent by her own adult son and daughter.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Jul. 26, 2026
Another common perk is a company-provided car or a car allowance, which can include free fuel.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Jul. 25, 2026
Andy Burnham has pulled back from suggestions about increasing the tax-free personal allowance.
From BBC ● Jul. 22, 2026
In 1937—just four years before Joey’s diagnosis—lepers in the Chinese province of Guangdong were promised an allowance of ten cents.
From "At Last She Stood" by Erin Entrada Kelly
"As a rule, insurance firms won't make allowances for 'disinclination to travel'," Boland says.
From BBC ● Jul. 27, 2026
The ETS forces heavy polluters to pay for the greenhouse gases they emit, obliging them to buy allowances that are capped in number, sold in auctions and tradable.
From Barron's ● Jul. 17, 2026
The changes would mean some industries could obtain emission allowances until 2038 instead of 2034, if they commit to investing in decarbonisation efforts.
From BBC ● Jul. 17, 2026
The answer will primarily center around its environmental impact — and whether giving away new free allowances will lead to fossil fuel pollution or air pollution that otherwise would not happen, Elkind said.
From Los Angeles Times ● Jul. 7, 2026
Within a few minutes, some of us had more money than we had been able to accumulate in a year of cottage allowances.
From "Three Little Words: A Memoir" by Ashley Rhodes-Courter
The first album I ever bought with my own money, allowanced saved up for weeks, was “Long Hard Climb.”
From Los Angeles Times ● Oct. 1, 2020
Onct a week dey would come and dey allowanced 'em out pervisions.
From Slave Narratives: a Folk History of Slavery in the United States From Interviews with Former Slaves: Volume XVI, Texas Narratives, Part 4 by United States. Work Projects Administration
Then don't you ever go and say you were allowanced, mind that.'
From The Old Curiosity Shop by Dickens, Charles
I also cut about three or four pounds off a flitch of bacon that hung in the chimney corner, nicely marked to prevent any being lost on account of my late allowanced state.
From The Autobiography of Sergeant William Lawrence A Hero of the Peninsular and Waterloo Campaigns by Nugent-Bankes, George
But the timber will be allowanced, and the land parcelled out, to each household according to its needs, as soon as either becomes scarce, as is already the case in Russia.
From The Conquest of Bread by Kropotkin, Petr Alekseevich, kniaz
And when the larger wood begins to grow scarce, what course does the peasant adopt?—The allowancing of individuals.
From The Place of Anarchism in Socialistic Evolution An Address Delivered in Paris by Glasse, Henry
The Germans had been allowancing Recicourt to nine a day.
From The Martial Adventures of Henry and Me by White, William Allen
Definitions and idiom definitions from Dictionary.com Unabridged, based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2023
Idioms from The American Heritage® Idioms Dictionary copyright © 2002, 2001, 1995 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company.
