a. Also aphet. lowable. [a. Fr. allouable, f. allouer: see ALLOW and -ABLE.]
† 1. Worthy of praise; praiseworthy, laudable. Obs.
1393. Langl., P. Pl., C. XVIII. 130. Lowable [v.r. al-, allowable] was it neuere.
1413. Lydg., Pylgr. Sowle, IV. xxix. (1859), 62. A statu, or an ymage his allowable and sadde condicions.
1580. Hollyband, Treas. Fr. Tong., Louable, praise worthy, allowable, laudable.
1670. Eachard, Contempt Clergy, 44. True and allowable rhetorick, that is, of what is decorous and convenient to be spoken.
1702. Eng. 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.
1552. Huloet, Allowable, Acceptabilis.
1561. T. N[orton], trans. Calvin’s Inst., III. xxiii. (1634), 469. If he goe about to make himselfe allowable to him [God] with innocency and honesty of life.
1580. Baret, A 299. Pleasant, alowable, acceptable, Acceptus.
1611. Bible, Transl. Pref., 9. If the olde vulgar had bene at all points allowable.
1623. Sanderson, Serm., Ad. Mag. ii. § 8 (1674), 104. Custom had made it not only excusable but allowable.
3. To be intellectually admitted or conceded.
1712. Steele, Spect., No. 546, ¶ 2. The advantages of action, show and dress on these occasions are allowable.
b. Worthy of provisional acceptance; probable.
a. 1682. Sir 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. Worthy of toleration, fit to be borne, permitted, endured; tolerable, permissible, admissible, excusable, legitimate. (At first in negative sentences.)
a. 1568. Coverdale, Christs Cross, viii. Wks. II. 258. Prayer for the dead is not … allowable or to be excused.
1561. T. N[orton], trans. Calvin’s Inst., I. 5. There is no lawfully allowable religion, but that which is ioyned with truthe.
1625. Meade, in Ellis, Orig. Lett., I. 310, III. 193. Devise some allowable and parliamentary way … to supply the present necessities.
1712. Steele, Spect., No. 555, ¶ 2. The licence allowable to a feigned character.
a. 1732. Atterbury, Serm. (J.). Their pursuit of it is not only allowable but laudable.
1790. Johnson, in Boswell (1831), I. 454. It may be defended as a very allowable practice.
1824. Miss Mitford, Village, Ser. I. (1863), 140. A little touch of very allowable finery in the gay window-curtains.
1868. M. Pattison, Acad. Organ., § 5. 143. The payment of the teacher by endowment is not only allowable, it is necessary.
