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Allowance vs Maintenance - What's the difference?

allowance | maintenance |

As nouns the difference between allowance and maintenance

is that allowance is the act of allowing, granting, conceding, or admitting; authorization; permission; sanction; tolerance while maintenance is actions performed to keep some machine or system functioning or in service.

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

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 .

    maintenance

    Alternative forms

    * maintenaunce

    Noun

    (en noun)
  • Actions performed to keep some machine or system functioning or in service
  • (legal) A tort committed when a third party who does not have a bona fide interest in a lawsuit provides help or acquires an interest to a litigant's lawsuit.
  • (legal) (UK English) Alimony, a periodical payment or a lump sum made or ordered to be made to a spouse after a divorce.
  • Money required or spent to provide for the needs of a person or a family.
  • See also

    * high-maintenance * low-maintenance * maintenance-free * maintenance window