Allot, Assign, Apportion and Allocate mean to give as one’s share, portion, role, or place.
Allot implies more or less arbitrary or haphazard selection and in itself conveys no suggestion of a fair or equal distribution.
- allotted himself an hour a day for exercise
- allot 500 square feet to an exhibitor
- he had been allotted a small sitting room
—Mackenzie - Brutus and Cassius . . . were allotted the minor governments of Crete and Cyrene
—Buchan
Assign stresses authoritative and usually fixed allotment; it too carries no hint of an even division.
- this original and supreme will organizes the government, and assigns to different departments their respective powers
—John Marshall - to each month there has been assigned by tradition a birthstone considered appropriate to that month
—Nurnberg & Rosenblum
Apportion, on the other hand, implies a principle of fair division, sometimes of equivalence in sharing, but more often of a proportionate distribution.
- after each decennial census Congress apportions the number of representatives to be elected by each state
- his guardians had apportioned to him an allowance . . . adequate to his position
—Disraeli
Allocate is used chiefly in reference to money, property, territory, or powers, and suggests definite appropriation to a particular person or group or dedication to a particular use.
- allocate a sum of money for the construction of a bridge
- districts of Czechoslovakia allocated to Germany by the Munich Agreement
- the Marine Corps would be allocated primary responsibility for amphibious development and doctrine pertaining to landing forces
—Collier’s Yr. Bk.)