make it possible through a specific action or lack of action for something to happen; "This permits the water to rush in"; "This sealed door won't allow the water come into the basement"; "This will permit the rain to run off"
Used in a Sentence
allow
How to use allow in a sentence. Example sentences and definitions for allow.
Editorial note
Security bugs are fuckups by nature - nobody sat and said well shit I was going to code this wrong but since it might allow a lot of access I won't.
Examples8
Definitions10
Parts of speech1
Quick take
make it possible through a specific action or lack of action for something to happen; "This permits the water to rush in"; "This sealed door won't allow the water come into the basement"; "This will permit the rain to run off"
Meaning at a glance
The clearest senses and uses of allow gathered in one view.
consent to, give permission; "She permitted her son to visit her estranged husband"; "I won't let the police search her basement"; "I cannot allow you to see your exam"
let have; "grant permission"; "Mandela was allowed few visitors in prison"
Definitions
Core meanings and parts of speech for allow.
verb
make it possible through a specific action or lack of action for something to happen; "This permits the water to rush in"; "This sealed door won't allow the water come into the basement"; "This will permit the rain to run off"
verb
consent to, give permission; "She permitted her son to visit her estranged husband"; "I won't let the police search her basement"; "I cannot allow you to see your exam"
See also: permit, let, countenance
verb
let have; "grant permission"; "Mandela was allowed few visitors in prison"
See also: grant
verb
give or assign a resource to a particular person or cause; "I will earmark this money for your research"; "She sets aside time for meditation every day"
See also: appropriate, earmark, reserve
verb
make a possibility or provide opportunity for; permit to be attainable or cause to remain; "This leaves no room for improvement"; "The evidence allows only one conclusion"; "allow for mistakes"; "leave lots of time for the trip"; "This procedure provides for lots of leeway"
verb
allow or plan for a certain possibility; concede the truth or validity of something; "I allow for this possibility"; "The seamstress planned for 5% shrinkage after the first wash"
verb
afford possibility; "This problem admits of no solution"; "This short story allows of several different interpretations"
See also: admit
verb
allow the other (baseball) team to score; "give up a run"
verb
grant as a discount or in exchange; "The camera store owner allowed me $50 on my old camera"
verb
allow the presence of or allow (an activity) without opposing or prohibiting; "We don't allow dogs here"; "Children are not permitted beyond this point"; "We cannot tolerate smoking in the hospital"
Example sentences
Security bugs are fuckups by nature - nobody sat and said well shit I was going to code this wrong but since it might allow a lot of access I won't.
Isn't this exactly what Bitcoin was created for - to allow unregulated access to currency?
Thinking along the lines of, oh yeah I'll use OpenCL so I can be hardware agnostic, is never going to allow you to see what can be possible with it.
This I've added to my next letter to my representatives in Congress:"Dr. Smith said federal Medicare regulation would not allow for their online price menu.
We got dragged, grudgingly, by our enterprise customers to allow paying by purchase order / ACH because that's how their purchasing departments expect to do things.
"The biggest problem was they didn't allow the developers to have staging or testing servers -- they deployed on the production servers on the first go-around...
And it wont be that easy for people to follow it Another example [6]: The agency has urged hospitals to allow vendors to guide them on security of sophisticated devices.
Rather than just allow you to pass login tokens to Flexible Payments, however, they have decided to provide a completely incompatible API with a new set of endpoints, a completely incompatible accounting system, and even completely new terminology to describe the same set of steps.
Frequently asked questions
Short answers drawn from the clearest meanings and examples for this word.
How do you use allow in a sentence?
Security bugs are fuckups by nature - nobody sat and said well shit I was going to code this wrong but since it might allow a lot of access I won't.
What does allow mean?
make it possible through a specific action or lack of action for something to happen; "This permits the water to rush in"; "This sealed door won't allow the water come into the basement"; "This will permit the rain to run off"
What part of speech is allow?
allow is commonly used as verb.