| 释义 |
allowable, a. and n.|əˈlaʊəb(ə)l|
Also aphet. lowable.
[a. Fr. allouable, f. allouer: see allow and -able.]
†1. Worthy of praise; praiseworthy, laudable. Obs.
1393Langl. P. Pl. C. xviii. 130 Lowable [v.r. al-, allowable] was it neuere. 1413Lydg. Pylgr. Sowle iv. xxix. (1859) 62 A statu, or an ymage his allowable and sadde condicions. 1580Hollyband Treas. Fr. Tong., Louable, praise worthy, allowable, laudable. 1670Eachard Contempt Clergy 44 True and allowable rhetorick, that is, of what is decorous and convenient to be spoken. 1702Eng. Theophr. 176 There is a sweeter, more noble and allowable sort of vengeance.
2. Worthy of sanction, approval, or acceptance (without rising to praise); satisfactory, acceptable.
1552Huloet, Allowable, Acceptabilis. 1561T. N[orton] tr. Calvin's Inst. iii. xxiii. (1634) 469 If he goe about to make himselfe allowable to him [God] with innocency and honesty of life. 1580Baret A 299 Pleasant, alowable, acceptable, Acceptus. 1611Bible Transl. Pref. 9 If the olde vulgar had bene at all points allowable. 1623Sanderson Serm. Ad. Mag. ii. §8 (1674) 104 Custom had made it not only excusable but allowable.
3. a. To be intellectually admitted or conceded.
1712Steele Spect. No. 546 ⁋2 The advantages of action, show and dress on these occasions are allowable.
b. Worthy of provisional acceptance; probable.
a1682Sir T. Browne Tracts 3 Therein an allowable allusion unto the tropical conversion of the Sun. Ibid. 8 What Tremelius rendreth Spina is allowable in the sense.
4. a. Worthy of toleration, fit to be borne, permitted, endured; tolerable, permissible, admissible, excusable, legitimate. (At first in negative sentences.)
a1568Coverdale Christs Cross viii. Wks. II. 258 Prayer for the dead is not..allowable or to be excused. 1561T. N[orton] tr. Calvin's Inst. i. 5 There is no lawfully allowable religion, but that which is ioyned with truthe. 1625Meade in Ellis Orig. Lett. i. 310 III. 193 Devise some allowable and parliamentary way..to supply the present necessities. 1712Steele Spect. No. 555 ⁋2 The licence allowable to a feigned character. a1732Atterbury Serm. (J.) Their pursuit of it is not only allowable but laudable. 1790Johnson in Boswell (1831) I. 454 It may be defended as a very allowable practice. 1824Miss Mitford Village Ser. i. (1863) 140 A little touch of very allowable finery in the gay window-curtains. 1868M. Pattison Acad. Organ. §5. 143 The payment of the teacher by endowment is not only allowable, it is necessary.
b. spec. of the restricted production of oil (see quots.). Hence as n. U.S. and Canada.
1940M. Albertson in E. DeGolyer Elements Petroleum Ind. xii. 287 Many methods of allocation of allowable oil to producers are in use. Ibid., When oil-producing capacity became sufficient..restriction of production was enforced. Allowables were established for wells, leases, pools, and states. 1949M. Muskat Physical Princ. Oil Production x. 454 Total production from the state is fixed..and this total is subdivided or prorated among the fields in the state. These prorated field ‘allowables’ have generally been far below..production capacities. 1960Guardian 9 Sept. 10/1 Their owners..keep up the price of oil by a quota system which restricts production to so many days' output (called ‘allowables’) in each month. |