allot

verb

al·​lot ə-ˈlät 

allotted; allotting

transitive verb

1

: to assign as a share or portion

allot 10 minutes for the speech

2

: to distribute by or as if by lot

allot seats to the press

allotter noun

Synonyms

• allocate
• allow
• apportion
• assign
• distribute
• lot
• ration

Examples of allot in a Sentence

Each speaker will be allotted 15 minutes.

The newspaper will allot a full page to each of the three mayoral candidates.

Recent Examples on the Web

At a Brookdale facility in Chicago, tiny elevators prevented residents from being herded en masse to dinner, necessitating more trips and more time than Service Alignment allotted. —Christopher Rowland, Washington Post, 1 Apr. 2024

One source of funding for these positions is the $2 billion in environmental justice community grants allotted to the EPA in November. —Naveena Sadasivam & Kate Yoder / Grist, Quartz, 14 Mar. 2024

The program, which allots $2.35 million to SDG&E’s service territory, is expected to launch by the end of the year. —Rob Nikolewski, San Diego Union-Tribune, 10 Mar. 2024

For everything that happened in the telecast, the show somehow came in ahead of the 3 hours and 30 minutes allotted by ABC, and that was even with a strange six-minute delay at the top. —Daniel Fienberg, The Hollywood Reporter, 10 Mar. 2024

Bovo has said that Hialeah’s population, which is 95% Latino, is undercounted and therefore unknown because many people won’t participate in the Census, which the federal government uses to allot funding to states and cities. —Verónica Egui Brito, Miami Herald, 28 Feb. 2024

Instead of explaining this to our client, our team allotted additional time to manually capture and deliver the same level of data to our client during this time. —Nelly Voukaki, Forbes, 28 Mar. 2024

That sounded reasonable to us, but the next month we were only allotted three kilos of rice. —Cnt Editors, Condé Nast Traveler, 21 Mar. 2024

My draft is invariably too long, and cutting it to the 150 words I’m allotted can be taxing. —Frank Stewart, The Mercury News, 17 Mar. 2024

Word History

Etymology

Middle English alotten, borrowed from Anglo-French aloter, from a- (going back to Latin ad- ad-) + -loter, verbal derivative of lot "lot, portion, share," borrowed from Old Low Franconian *hlota-, going back to Germanic *hluta- — more at lot entry 1

First Known Use

15th century, in the meaning defined at sense 1

Kids Definition

allot

verb

al·​lot ə-ˈlät 

allotted; allotting

: to assign as a share or portion

allot 10 minutes for the speech