Allotment

How to spell allotment

9 letters · 3 syllables

How to pronounce allotment

Say the part in capitals loudest.

What does allotment mean?

1. nounA portion or share of something that has been formally assigned or distributed.
2. nounA small piece of public land rented to a person for growing vegetables, fruit, or flowers.

Allotment in a sentence

• Each department received its annual budget allotment in April.

• He spends every weekend digging potatoes on his allotment.

• The airline confirmed her baggage allotment before the long flight.

• The council keeps a long waiting list for each vacant allotment.

Where does allotment come from?

Language of origin: French

This word grows from the verb 'allot', which English took from the Old French 'aloter', meaning 'to divide by lot' or 'to assign as a share'. That French verb combined the prefix 'a-' (meaning 'to') with 'lot', a word of Germanic origin describing an object drawn or cast to settle a decision, and by extension the portion that fell to a person. English added the Latin-derived noun suffix '-ment' in the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries to form 'allotment', meaning the act of allotting or the thing allotted. From the general sense of an assigned share, the word developed its very British meaning in the nineteenth century: a small parcel of public land rented to ordinary people to grow their own food. The spelling trap lives in the doubled letters, since the single 'l' of 'lot' is preceded by the prefix 'al-', giving the deceptive 'allot' with two l's but only one t before '-ment'.

How the word is built

• al- (to, from Old French a-)
• lot (a portion, share)
• -ment (noun-forming suffix)