allowment

English

Etymology

From allow +‎ -ment.

Noun

allowment (countable and uncountable, plural allowments)

1. An amount of money or resources that someone is allotted; an allotment.
   • 1887, The Journal of Proceedings and Addresses of the National Educational Association (U.S.):

     On this point Dr. Woodward says: “For the lower grades a daily allowment of one hour for drawing, modelling, cutting, pasting, gluing, and sewing would be enough for positive manual training."

   • 1902, State of West Virginia, Public Documents - Volume 1:

     The law concerning the control of the Capitol buildings, the allowment of the rooms for various purposes, and the like, is not clear.

   • 1954, The Iowa Engineer - Volume 55, page 27:

     While being in the advance program, the cadets receive an allowment from the government which amounts up to approximately sixty dollars a quarter. Out of this allowment the student must pay for his officers uniform which cost ninty dollars.

   • 1975, Annual Report to the Citizens' Advisory Board on Corrections, page 101:

     Our recommendations to the Claims Committee have varied from recommending full allowment of the claim, partial allowment of the claim to no reimbursement for the claim.

2. The act of allowing.
   • 1570, A Postil, Or Orderly Disposing of Certeine Epistles, page 334:

     And therefore they obteined the allowment of God and their own conscience , and the commendation of all godly insnne, and of the whole church.

   • 1885, Boston (Mass.). City Council, Documents of the City of Boston - Volume 3:

     I have known a patent to be taken from a man after it was allowed, – between the allowment and the issue.

   • 1886, Pioneer Collections, volume 7, page 42:

     To encourage students by the allowment of pleasure and amusement," he says that he has already sent orders to New York for a spinning-machine of about one hundred spindles, an air pump, an electrical apparatus, etc.:

   • 1892, Louisiana. State. Commissioner of Agriculture, Biennial Report, page 128:

     These conditions have prevented that careful preparation of soil so essential to the allowment of good stands and easy after cultivation.

3. (mathematics) A mapping of a hypothesis to the set of arguments that support or reject that hypothesis weighted by the probability of the hypothesis given each argument.
   • 1995, Bernadette Bouchon-Meunier, Ronald R. Yager, Advances in Intelligent Computing - IPMU '94:

     Its algebraic part is discussed as a body of arguments which contains an allocation of support and an allowment of possibility for each hypothesis.