Dowry
noun, verb, slang ·Common ·High school level
Definitions
- 1 Payment, such as property or money, paid by the bride's family to the groom or his family at the time of marriage. countable, uncountable
- 2 money or property brought by a woman to her husband at marriage wordnet
- 3 Payment by the groom or his family to the bride's family. countable, uncommon, uncountable
"The family of the groom makes sure the new couple has a house to live in and land to cultivate; they will also pay for the dowry (crucial, for without dowry the new father has no rights over his children; Trouwborst 1962: 136ff.)"
- 4 Inheritance from a deceased husband to his widow. countable, obsolete, uncountable
- 5 A natural gift or talent. countable, uncountable
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- 6 A large amount. countable, informal, uncountable
"But no palace had so fair a ceiling; for from the wooden beams were suspended a whole dowry of copper vessels—pails, cauldrons, water pots, of every colour from lustrous black to the palest pink."
- 1 To bestow a dowry upon.
"1976, Graham Anderson, Studies in Lucian's Comic Fiction, Page 19"
Antonyms
All antonymsExample
More examples"It used to be that a girl could only marry if she had a dowry."
Etymology
From Middle English dowarye, dowerie, from Anglo-Norman dowarie, douarie, from Old French douaire, from Medieval Latin dōtārium, from Latin dōs. Doublet of dower.
Related phrases
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Data sourced from Wiktionary, WordNet, CMU, and other open linguistic databases. Updated March 2026.