Al*low"ance (#), n. [OF. alouance.]
1.
Approval; approbation.
[Obs.]
Crabbe.
2.
The act of allowing, granting, conceding, or admitting; authorization; permission; sanction; tolerance.
Without the king's will or the state's allowance.
Shak.
3.
Acknowledgment.
The censure of the which one must in your allowance o'erweigh a whole theater of others.
Shak.
4.
License; indulgence.
[Obs.]
Locke.
5.
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.
6.
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.
7. com.
A customary deduction from the gross weight of goods, different in different countries, such as tare and tret.
© Webster 1913.
Al*low"ance, v. t. [imp. & p. p. Allowancing (#).] [See Allowance, n.]
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.
© Webster 1913.