ALLOW - The Law Mind Legal Dictionary

ALLOWAuthored

The Law Mind • 889 words

Definition

To allow, in legal usage, carries three distinct but related meanings depending on context:

To grant, approve, or permit. A court or authority allows an action when it gives formal sanction to it — allowing an appeal, allowing a motion, or allowing a marriage. This is the most common procedural usage.

To approve an account. When a court or administrator allows an account — in probate, estate, or public finance proceedings — it means the account has been reviewed and formally accepted as accurate and proper.

To apportion a share from a larger fund or estate. To allow alimony, an inheritance, or a deduction is to carve out and assign a designated portion from a larger whole. This meaning overlaps with terms like apportion and allot but carries its own legal weight.

Common Language

Modern common usage (Wiktionary): To permit; to let someone have something as a suitable share; to acknowledge or concede; to grant as a deduction.

Historical common usage (Webster's 1913): To sanction or approve; to praise or commend; to be pleased with (largely archaic senses). Also, to grant as a deduction or abatement.

The everyday word "allow" maps closely enough onto several legal senses — permit, concede, grant — that researchers may underestimate how precise the term becomes in legal context. When a court allows an account or allows a claim, the word carries the weight of a formal, reviewable determination, not mere passive permission. The distinction between allowing (formal approval of a thing presented) and merely permitting (not obstructing) is consequential in procedural and probate settings.

Common Confusion

Allow vs. allot: Bouvier draws an explicit distinction. To allow typically means to substitute something by way of compensation — granting a portion in lieu of or offset against something else. To allot is more properly used when a specific piece of property is set apart directly. Researchers encountering both terms in estate, domestic relations, or partition proceedings should not treat them as interchangeable. The 1873 Alabama case cited in Bouvier (41 Ala. 586) reflects that courts were already enforcing this distinction in the nineteenth century.

Allow vs. approve: In some procedural contexts these terms are synonymous. In others — particularly account review — allow implies the additional step of examination and acceptance, not merely endorsement.

Why It Matters in Research

The word "allow" appears in legal sources across wildly different procedural contexts, and its meaning shifts with each. Researchers working in:

— Appellate procedure will find "allow" meaning formal grant of leave (allowing an appeal, allowing a writ).
— Probate and estate administration will find "allow" as a term of art for court approval of accountings, inventories, and claims against estates.
— Domestic relations sources will find "allow" in the sense of apportioning support — allowing alimony out of an estate or income.
— Tax, commercial, and lease contexts use "allow" to mean granting a deduction, credit, or allowance from a larger sum.

The danger in historical sources is conflation. A nineteenth-century court using "allow" in a probate decree means something structurally different from the same word in an appellate order, even though the surface text looks identical. Readers skimming historical opinions should anchor the meaning to the procedural posture, not the word alone.

The apportionment sense — allowing a wife alimony out of a larger estate — connects directly to the Law Mind encyclopedia entry on TI Allowances and commercial lease negotiations, where "allowance" retains this same structural logic: a designated sum carved from a larger whole, granted under defined conditions.

Historical Dictionary Support

Black's (both editions) and Bouvier agree on the core triad of meanings: permit/approve, approve an account, and apportion from a fund. The definitions are nearly identical across these sources, suggesting a stable and settled usage by the late nineteenth century.

Bouvier adds the most analytical value by distinguishing allow from allot, citing authority for the proposition that allow implies compensatory substitution while allot implies direct partition of specific property. This distinction appears nowhere in Black's and is easy to miss.

The Anderson's Dictionary entry provided does not address "allow" — the source material appears to contain a passage on allegiance, likely a pagination or indexing error in the corpus. Researchers should not rely on Anderson's for this term without independent verification.

Webster's 1913 records older senses of allow — to praise, to be pleased with — that are fully archaic in legal usage by the nineteenth century. These meanings are noted here as a caution: pre-1800 legal texts, ecclesiastical records, or translated sources may use "allow" in these older registers.

Encyclopedia Cross-Reference

Commercial Lease Negotiation — Key Terms (Rent, Escalation, CAM, TI Allowance, Options), The Law Mind Real Estate Transactions & Construction Encyclopedia. Relevant for the apportionment sense of allow: tenant improvement allowances and similar lease provisions represent the direct descendant of the historical usage of allow as a grant of a designated portion from a larger fund.

ALLOWmain

Black's Law Dictionary • 1891

To grant, approve, or permit; As to allow an appeal or a marriage; to allow an account. Also to give a fit portion out of a larger property or fund.

ALLOWmain

Bouvier's Law Dictionary • 1928

To permit, consent to, or approve; as to allow an appeal or a marriage; to allow an account. Also, to give a fit portion out of a larger property or fund; as to allow a wife alimony. Abbott. Allow usually means to substitute some- thing by way of compensation for another thing, while allot is a proper term for a direc- tion to set apart a portion of specific property. Id.; 41 Ala. 586.

ALLOWmain

Anderson's Dictionary of Law • 1890

government or sovereign. An alien whilst domiciled in the country owes a local and temporary allegiance, which continues during the period of his residence.1 At common law natural allegiance could not be renounced except by permission of the sovereign to whom it was due. This was changed by the act of Congress of July 27, 1868, and by statute of 33 Vict. c. 14, May 10, 1870. Whether natural allegiance revives upon return of the naturalized citizen to his native country is not settled. See EXPATRIATION; INDIAN; NATURALIZATION; TREASON; WAR. To approve of, sanction; to permit, consent to. Opposed, disallow. See PERMIT; SUFFER. In its ordinary sense, to grant, admit, afford, or to yield, to grant license to, permit. Implies a power to grant some privilege or permission.4 Allowance. The act of permitting or giving; also, whatever is given as a share or portion. As, to allow, and the allowance of - an account, alimony, an amendment, an appeal, a bill of exceptions, a claim, a pardon, a pension, a sum to an insolvent. "Allowing" claims against estates: the sanction or approbation which the courtgives to the acts of an executor or administrator as manifested by his ac1 Carlisle v. United States, 16 Wall. 154 (1872), count.5 Field, J. Allowance to a widow of money in lieu of dower: 21 Bl. Com. 369; 2 Kent, 449; 8 Op. Att. Gen. 139; something substituted by way of compensation for 9 id. 356. R. S. § 1999. Whart. Confl. L. § 6; 18 Am. Law Reg. 595, 665 (1879). Bailey v. Culver, 12 Mo. Ap. 183 (1882). another thing. 1 Al-lunj'. F. allonger, to lengthen. Crosby v. Roub, 16 Wis. 626-27 (1863); Folger v. Chase, 18 Pick. 67 (1836); French v. Turner, 15 Ind. 62 Ger. al-ód, all one's own: the whole estate, - Skeat. (1860); Osgood v. Artt, 17 F. R. 577 (1883); Story, Bills, 72 Bl. Com. 105. 82 Bl. Com. 47, 60. 3 Kent, 495, 488, 498. 10 Barker v. Dayton, 28 Wis. 384 (1871), Dixon, C. J. See 1 Washb. R. P. 16, 41; 9 Cow. 513. § 204, Prom. Notes, §§ 121, 151. 3 Glenn v. Glenn, 41 Ala. 586 (1868.) Doty v. Lawson, 14 F. R. 901 (1883). • Gildhardt's Heirs v. Starke, 1 How., Miss., 457 (1837) • Glenn v. Glenn, 41 Ala. 584, 586 (1868).

ALLOWv.

Websters Unabridged Dictionary (1913) • 1913

To praise; to approve of; hence, to sanction. [Obs. or Archaic] Ye allow the deeds of your fathers. Luke xi. 48. We commend his pains, condemn his pride, allow his life, approve his learning. Fuller. To like; to be suited or pleased with. [Obs.] How allow you the model of these clothes Massinger. To sanction; to invest; to intrust. [Obs.] Thou shalt be . . . allowed with absolute power. Shak. To grant, give, admit, accord, afford, or yield; to let one have; as, to allow a servant his liberty; to allow a free passage; to allow one day for rest. He was allowed about three hundred pounds a year. Macaulay. To own or acknowledge; to accept as true; to concede; to accede to an opinion; as, to allow a right; to allow a claim; to allow the truth of a proposition. I allow, with Mrs. Grundy and most moralists, that Miss Newcome's conduct . . . was highly reprehensible. Thackeray. To grant (something) as a deduction or an addition; esp. to abate or deduct; as, to allow a sum for leakage. To grant license to; to permit; to consent to; as, to allow a son to be absent.

ALLOWv.

Websters Unabridged Dictionary (1913) • 1913

To admit; to concede; to make allowance or abatement. Allowing still for the different ways of making it. Addison. To allow of, to permit; to admit. Shak.

allowverb

Wiktionary (English) • 2026

Wiktionary contributors • CC BY-SA 4.0 • via Kaikki
Extracted and formatted for display by Law Mind. Source link opens the current Wiktionary page and its contributor history; it is not a frozen copy of this extract.

To let one have as a suitable share of something. | To permit, to give permission to. | To not bar or obstruct. | To acknowledge, accept the truth of; to concede; to accede to an opinion; to say something one agrees on in the context of a larger disagreement or reluctance. | To grant (something) as a deduction or an addition; especially to abate or deduct. | To make an allowance, to take into account when making plans. | To render physically possible. | To praise; to approve of; hence, to sanction. | To sanction; to invest; to entrust. | To like; to be suited or pleased with. | To decide (a request) in favour of the party who raised it; to grant victory to a party regarding (a request). | To forgo bothering with, to let slide.

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