dowry

Meanings

1. 1
   noun

   Payment by the groom or his family to the bride's family.

   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.)

2. 2
   noun

   A large amount.

   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.

3. 3
   verb

   To bestow a dowry upon.

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

4. 4
   noun

   money or property brought by a woman to her husband at marriage

5. 5
   noun

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

6. 6
   noun

   Inheritance from a deceased husband to his widow.

7. 7
   noun

   A natural gift or talent.

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.