Webster's Revised Unabridged Dictionary · 1913

Allowance

Allowance ({not transcribed}) , noun

[Old French alouance.]

1.
Approval; approbation. [Obsolete] — Crabbe
2.
The act of allowing, granting, conceding, or admitting; authorization; permission; sanction; tolerance.
Without the king's will or the state's allowance. — Shakespeare
3.
Acknowledgment.
The censure of the which one must in your allowance o'erweigh a whole theater of others. — Shakespeare
4.
License; indulgence. [Obsolete] — 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.

Allowance ({not transcribed}) , transitive verb

[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.