The act or practice of allotting; the system or process of distributing shares or portions.
From allot plus -ery suffix (a system or place of practice). Similar to how 'bravery' comes from 'brave' or 'mockery' from 'mock.' This is an older term for the distribution process itself.
The word 'allottery' is mostly historical now, but it was commonly used in colonial America and Britain when describing the formal process of dividing up public lands—it's like the government had an official 'allottery system' for westward expansion.
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