Al‐low″ance (�), n. [OF. alouance.] 1. Approval; approbation. 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. 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.