allocation

UK/ˌæl.əˈkeɪ.ʃən/US/ˌæl.əˈkeɪ.ʃən/

nounC1Rare in speech; mostly a word you read · #12,785 of 15,258mostly written

Other forms: allocations

An allocation is the share given out to each. Budget allocation, an allocation of places, increase the allocation.

It implies a decision by somebody with the power to make it, which is what separates an allocation from a distribution that just happened. In housing it is the formal word for being given a council property.

Definitions of allocation

1nounallocationThe share given out to each.C1
“Each department received its budget allocation for the coming year.”

allocation is a share.

Also accepted in games: allotment

Where it comes from

Medieval Latin allocatio comes from allocare, to place or assign, from ad plus locus, a place.

Medieval Latin
allocātiō
Middle French
allocacion
English, today
allocation

From Middle French allocacion, from Medieval Latin allocātiō. by surface analysis, allocate + -ion.

Etymology from Wiktionary, CC BY-SA

Practise this word

allocation in the wild

Memory management (also dynamic memory management, dynamic storage allocation, or dynamic memory allocation) is a form of resource management applied to computer memory.
Memory management
A local Internet registry is an organization that assigns parts of its allocation from a regional Internet registry to other customers.
Internet Assigned Numbers Authority
In economics, resource allocation is the assignment of available resources to various uses.
Resource allocation
Many different implementations of the actual memory allocation mechanism, used by malloc, are available.
C dynamic memory allocation
Over the summer of 2012, resulting in a Central Bureau of Investigation probe into whether the allocation of the coal blocks was in fact influenced by corruption.
Indian coal allocation scam

From Wikipedia, CC BY-SA 4.0. These sentences were written by other people about their own subjects; they are here to show the word at work, not as anybody’s opinion.

Related words

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