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Allowance vs Incentive - What's the difference?

allowance | incentive |

As nouns the difference between incentive and allowance

is that incentive is something that motivates, rouses, or encourages while allowance is the act of allowing, granting, conceding, or admitting; authorization; permission; sanction; tolerance.

As an adjective incentive

is inciting; encouraging or moving; rousing to action; stimulating.

As a verb allowance is

to put upon a fixed allowance (especially of provisions and drink); to supply in a fixed and limited quantity.

allowance

English

(wikipedia allowance)

Alternative forms

* allowaunce (obsolete)

Noun

(en noun)
  • The act of allowing, granting, conceding, or admitting; authorization; permission; sanction; tolerance.
  • * Without the king's will or the state's allowance. --
  • Acknowledgment.
  • * The censure of the which one must in your allowance overweigh a whole theater of others. --
  • 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. -- .
  • 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. -- .
  • (commerce) A customary deduction from the gross weight of goods, different in different countries, such as tare and tret.
  • A child's allowance; pocket money.
    • She gives her daughters each an allowance of thirty dollars a month.
  • (minting) A permissible deviation in the fineness and weight of coins, owing to the difficulty in securing exact conformity to the standard prescribed by law.
  • (obsolete) approval; approbation
    • (Crabbe)
  • (obsolete) license; indulgence
    • (John Locke)

    Synonyms

    * (money) * (minting) (l), (l)

    Verb

    (allowanc)
  • To put upon a fixed allowance (especially of provisions and drink); to supply in a fixed and limited quantity.
    • The captain was obliged to allowance his crew.
    Our provisions were allowanced .

    incentive

    English

    (wikipedia incentive)

    Noun

    (en noun)
  • Something that motivates, rouses, or encourages.
  • * {{quote-magazine, date=2013-06-07, author=David Simpson
    • , volume=188, issue=26, page=36, magazine=(The Guardian Weekly) , title= Fantasy of navigation , passage=It is tempting to speculate about the incentives or compulsions that might explain why anyone would take to the skies in [the] basket [of a balloon]: perhaps out of a desire to escape the gravity of this world or to get a preview of the next; […].}}
  • A bonus or reward, often monetary, to work harder.

    • Antonyms

    * disincentive

    Derived terms

    * incentivise/incentivize, tax incentive

    Adjective

    (en adjective)
  • Inciting; encouraging or moving; rousing to action; stimulating.
  • * Dr. H. More
    • Competency is the most incentive to industry.
  • Serving to kindle or set on fire.
  • * Milton
    • Part incentive reed / Provide, pernicious with one touch of fire.

    External links

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