Dowry

Quick meaning: Dowry is a noun meaning Payment, such as property or money, paid by the bride's family to the groom or his family at the time of marriage.

Meaning

Payment, such as property or money, paid by the bride's family to the groom or his family at the time of marriage.

More Meanings

1. (less common) Payment by the groom or his family to the bride's family.
2. A natural gift or talent.
3. (informal) A large amount.
4. To bestow a dowry upon.
5. (obsolete) Inheritance from a deceased husband to his widow.

Example Sentences

1976, Graham Anderson, Studies in Lucian's Comic Fiction, Page 19

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.

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.)

Word Forms

• dowries
• dowrying
• dowried

Synonyms for dowry

Depending on context, synonyms include dower, dowery.

Antonyms for dowry

Common opposites include dower.

Related Words

Related dictionary entries include dowery, dower, gift, skill, dot, vein.

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