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allocate

/ˈæləkeɪt/·verb

to set apart a share of something limited for a particular purpose
Fig. 1 — One pile of coins, three jars, and a pencilled line on each jar at a different height.
01Definition

To allocate is to set apart a share of something limited for a particular purpose — money in a budget, minutes in an exam, memory in a program. From Latin ad- plus locare, 'to place', it is literally to assign a thing its place. The word belongs to plans and institutions: committees allocate funds, schedulers allocate time, and what has been allocated is spoken for. Unlike simply spending, allocating happens before the resource moves — the jars are labelled first, and only then do the coins travel.

02In use
  • iThe council must allocate its scarce budget across housing, transport, and schools.
  • iiAllocate forty minutes to the essay and guard them; the reading section will not give them back.
  • iiiEach program is allocated a fixed block of memory before it runs.
03Collocations
  • allocate resources
  • allocate funds to
  • allocate time for
  • be allocated
  • asset allocation

Family allocation (noun) · allocated (adjective) · allocable (adjective)

04Relations

=allot, assign, apportion, earmark, designate

≠withhold, hoard

06TOEFL & IELTS

The Task 2 workhorse: 'governments should allocate more resources to education' is practically a template opening, and the passive 'be allocated' carries half of formal report prose. Grammar of the prepositions: allocate something TO a recipient, FOR a purpose. Stress sits on the first syllable — AL-uh-kate — not on -LO-. The noun allocation names both the act and the portion received ('an allocation of £2m'), and 'asset allocation' is the investing sense of the same deliberate portioning.

07Asked
What is the difference between allocate and allot?
Both hand out shares; allocate is the more institutional word. You allot portions among recipients — each speaker is allotted ten minutes — while you allocate resources within a plan or budget, officially setting them apart for purposes: funds allocated for construction. In the scene above, the pencilled line on each jar is what makes it allocation — the share was decided before any coin moved.
Is it 'allocate to' or 'allocate for'?
Both, doing different jobs. Use to for the recipient: funds were allocated to local schools. Use for the purpose: funds were allocated for repairs. The passive is everywhere in formal prose — 'each team is allocated a budget' — and the double-object pattern ('allocate the schools more money') also occurs, though the prepositional versions read more formally.
What is the difference between allocate and assign?
Assign leans toward tasks and people: you assign homework, roles, blame — someone becomes responsible for something. Allocate leans toward resources and quantities: money, time, seats, memory get allocated. The overlap is real ('assign a budget' occurs), but the instincts differ: assigning points a duty at a person; allocating carves a limited pool into purposeful shares.
What does allocated mean in a budget or in finance?
That a sum has been formally set apart for a stated purpose — earmarked, spoken for, no longer free to spend elsewhere. Budgets are allocations all the way down: each line is a jar with its level pencilled in advance. In investing, asset allocation applies the same idea to a portfolio — deciding what share of the money sits in stocks, bonds, or cash before any single purchase is made.
What does 'allocate memory' mean in programming?
To reserve a block of a computer's memory for a program's use, so no other process writes over it. The metaphor is intact from the budget sense: memory is the finite pile, and each running program gets a measured share set apart for its purpose. When the program finishes, well-behaved code releases — deallocates — the block back to the pool.
What is the difference between an allocation and an allotment?
An allocation is a share set apart within a plan — a budget line, an allocation of tickets — and the word also names the act itself, shifting its stress along the way: al-uh-KAY-shun. An allotment is a share dealt out to a recipient, and in British English it has a second, famous life: a small rented plot of public land for growing vegetables, a use dating from the nineteenth-century allotment acts. A council can allocate land for allotments — both words doing their own jobs.