different between ablow vs allow

English

Pronunciation

• (US) IPA^(key): /??blo?/

Etymology 1

From a- +? blow.

Adjective

ablow (not comparable)

1. (obsolete, postpositive) Blossoming, blooming, in blossom.
   • 1891, Lizette Woodworth Reese, “Hallowmas” (poem), in A Handful of Lavender,^[1] Houghton, Mifflin and Company, page 13:

     You know, the year's not always May —

     Oh, once the lilacs were ablow !

   • 1989, Stephen L. Swynn, Garden Wisdom: Or, from One Generation to Another,^[2] Ayer Publishing, ?ISBN, page 110:

     [...] against the green, yet, growing in tilled soil, grow stronger and taller than any daffodil can grow in turf : hundreds of them are ablow together, and the very robustness of their splendour [...]

2. (dated, postpositive) Blowing or being blown; windy.

Usage notes

• Like most adjectives formed from this sense of a-, ablow never serves as an attributive premodifier; one can say “the flowers were ablow”, “ablow, the flowers [...]”, and even “[...] the flowers ablow [...]”, but not *“[...] the ablow flowers”.

Etymology 2

a- +? blow (“alteration of below”)

Preposition

ablow

1. (Scotland) Below.

Anagrams

• blaow, wobla

English

Etymology

From Middle English allowen, alowen, a borrowing from Anglo-Norman allouer, alouer, from Medieval Latin allaud?re, present active infinitive of allaud?, merged with alouer, from Medieval Latin alloc? (“to assign”). The similarity with Middle English alyfen (from Old English ?l?fan, ?l?efan) and German erlauben, both from Proto-Germanic *uzlaubijan? (“to allow”) is coincidental.

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): /??la?/
• enPR: ?-lou'
• Rhymes: -a?

Verb

allow (third-person singular simple present allows, present participle allowing, simple past and past participle allowed)

1. (transitive) To grant, give, admit, accord, afford, or yield; to let one have.
2. (transitive) To acknowledge; to accept as true; to concede; to accede to an opinion.
3. (transitive) To grant (something) as a deduction or an addition; especially to abate or deduct.

4. (transitive) To grant license to; to permit; to consent to.
5. To not bar or obstruct.
6. (transitive) To take into account by making an allowance.

7. (transitive) To render physically possible.
8. (transitive, obsolete) To praise; to approve of; hence, to sanction.
9. (obsolete) To sanction; to invest; to entrust.
10. (transitive, obsolete) To like; to be suited or pleased with.

Synonyms

• allot, assign, bestow, concede, admit, let, permit, suffer, tolerate

Derived terms

Related terms

• allowance
• disallow

Translations

References

• allow in Webster’s Revised Unabridged Dictionary, G. & C. Merriam, 1913.