ALLOWED

In the old manuscript Constitutions, this word that is now unusual is found in the sense of accepted. Thus, “Every Mason of the Craft that is Mason allowed, ye shall do to him as ye would be done unto yourself” as in the Lansdowne Manuscript, of about 1600 A.D., Mason allowed means Mason accepted, that is, approved. Phillips, in his New World of Words, 1690, defines the verb allow, “to give or grant; to approve of; to permit or suffer.” Latimer, in one of his sermons, uses it in this sense of approving or accepting, thus : ''Saint Peter, in forsaking his old boat and nets, was allowed as much before God as if he had forsaken all the riches in the world.“ In a similar sense is the word used in the Office of Public Baptism of Infants, in the Common Prayer Book of the Church of England.

The Bible (see Romans xiv, 22), also has “Happy is he that condemneth not himself in that thing which he alloweth.” Halliwell's Dictionary of Archaic and Provincial Words suggests the connection of the word with the Anglo-Norman alone, meaning to praise.