Allowance, n.
Etymology: [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.
4 more senses
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.
1 other Webster entry under this spelling
Allowance, v. t. [imp. & p. p. 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.
Shades of meaning
Fernald has no entry of its own for allowance; he lists it under pay, permission, subsidy.
Where he writes about it:
An allowance is a stipulated amount furnished at regular intervals as a matter of discretion or gratuity, as of food to besieged soldiers, or of money to a child or ward. — from pay
There may be a failure to object, which constitutes an implied permission, tho this is more properly expressed by allowance; we allow what we do not oppose, permit what we expressly authorize. — from permission
The word bounty may be applied to almost any regular or stipulated allowance by a government to a citizen or citizens; as, a bounty for enlisting in the army; a bounty for killing wolves. — from subsidy