allowance
Definition, pronunciation, etymology, and usage for the English word. Free spelling reference powered by Wiktionary.
Letters
9 characters
Language
English
word origin
Source
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Detailed reference entry for the English word "allowance", 9-letters, with pronunciation in International Phonetic Alphabet notation, etymology traced through Germanic and Romance roots where applicable, common misspelling variants catalogued from Hunspell error dictionaries, and usage frequency ranked against the top 100,000 English words in the Wordfreq corpus. PlainSpell covers English, Spanish, Portuguese, French, and German spelling with confusable-pair detection that highlights visually and phonetically similar words. This entry for "allowance" includes synonyms, antonyms, homophones, and cross-language translation pointers sourced from Wiktionary via the kaikki.org extract. Whether you are verifying the correct spelling of "allowance" for academic writing, checking homophone confusion, or exploring etymological origins, this page provides a citation-backed, free reference that requires no sign-up.
allowance is aEnglishnoun. It means: Permission; granting, conceding, or admitting. Pronounced /əˈlaʊəns/. It ranks #8,887 in English word frequency. Often confused with alliance and allowable.
| Property | Value |
|---|---|
| Headword | allowance |
| Language | English |
| Part of speech | Noun |
| IPA | /əˈlaʊəns/ |
| Letters | 9 |
| Frequency rank | #8,887 |
| Misspellings tracked | 12 |
| Confusable pairs | 2 |
| Source | Wiktionary (kaikki.org) |
Frequency rank visualization
Spelling & Dictionary Insight
The English entry for allowance is 9 letters long, classified as anoun, and transcribed in the International Phonetic Alphabet as /əˈlaʊəns/. Corpus data places it at rank #8,887 in overall English word frequency, indicating it appears regularly in written and spoken text.Wiktionary records 11 distinct senses for this headword, so context determines which meaning a reader should apply.
Our Hunspell-derived misspelling index lists 12 documented wrong-spelling variants for allowance, with forms such as "alloawnce", "allowacne", and "allowancce". Each variant represents a distinct typo pattern that appears often enough in corpora to be worth flagging, typically a doubled-consonant error, a silent-letter drop, or a vowel substitution.It also participates in 2 confusable-pair relationships, "alliance", "allowable", where similar look or sound leads writers to substitute one word for another in context.
Etymologically, the entry records: Etymology tree Proto-Indo-European *h₂éd Proto-Italic *ad Proto-Italic *ad- Latin ad- Latin laus Proto-Indo-European *-h₂ Proto-Indo-European *-éh₂ Proto-Indo-European *-yéti Proto-Indo-European *-eh₂yéti Proto-Italic *-āō Latin -ō Latin laudō Latin allaudō… Root origin matters for spelling because borrowed morphemes (Greek, Latin, Old French, Old English) carry their source-language orthographic conventions into modern English, which is why historical etymology is often the cleanest predictor of whether a cluster like "-ough", "-eau", or "-tion" will appear. For readers arriving here from a spelling check, the authoritative guidance is: the correct English form is allowance, spelled A-L-L-O-W-A-N-C-E, and any other sequence of those letters, regardless of how natural it feels, is a misspelling in standard orthography.
Definition
- 1Permission; granting, conceding, or admitting.
- 2Acknowledgment.
- 3An amount, portion, or share that is allotted or granted; a sum granted as a reimbursement, a bounty, or as appropriate for any purpose.
- 4An amount, portion, or share that is allotted or granted; a sum granted as a reimbursement, a bounty, or as appropriate for any purpose.
- 5Abatement; deduction; the taking into account of mitigating circumstances.
- 6A deduction from the gross weight of goods, such as to discount their container's weight or per a custom differing by country.
- 7A permitted reduction in the weight that a racehorse must carry.
- 8A permissible deviation in the fineness and weight of coins, owing to the difficulty in securing exact conformity to the standard prescribed by law.
- 9Approval; approbation.
- 10License; indulgence.
- 11A planned deviation between an exact dimension and a nominal or theoretical dimension.
Etymology
Etymology tree Proto-Indo-European *h₂éd Proto-Italic *ad Proto-Italic *ad- Latin ad- Latin laus Proto-Indo-European *-h₂ Proto-Indo-European *-éh₂ Proto-Indo-European *-yéti Proto-Indo-European *-eh₂yéti Proto-Italic *-āō Latin -ō Latin laudō Latin allaudō Old French aloer ▲ Latin ad- Latin locus ▲ Latin -ō Latin locō Latin allocō Old French aloer Old French alouer Proto-Indo-European *-yós Proto-Italic *-ios Old Latin -ios Latin -ius Latin -iader. Old French -ance Old French alouancebor. Middle English allouance English allowance From Middle English allouance, from Old French alouance. Morphologically allow + -ance.
This word in other languages
Common misspellings
Also misspelled as: alloawnce,allowacne,allowancce,allowanec,allowannce,allowence,allownace,allowwance,allwoance,alolwance,alowance,lalowance
Misspelling Pattern Breakdown
Relative frequency of common misspelling types for allowance
Misspelling Variants of "allowance"
Frequency rank: #8,887 in English
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Nearby English words
Other entries that begin with the letter A in our English index: