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Definition of "dowry" []

  • Money or property brought by a bride to her husband at marriage. Also called dower. (noun)
  • A sum of money required of a postulant at a convent. (noun)
  • A natural endowment or gift; a talent. (noun)
  • Archaic See dower. (noun)

American Heritage(R) Dictionary of the English Language, Fifth Edition. Copyright (c) 2011 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. All rights reserved.

Use "dowry" in a sentence
  • "Jenny shot back, realizing immediately that her being upset by visions conjured up by the word dowry had made that come out sounding as if she somehow considered it an insult to have it implied she was Egyptian."
  • "The girl was too old, – every day of twenty years, – but three hundred rubles in dowry, with board after marriage, not to mention handsome presents to the bridegroom, easily offset the bride's age."
  • "I think Miss Anville the loveliest of her sex; and, were I a marrying man, she, of all the women I have seen, I would fix upon for a wife: but I believe that not even the philosophy of your Lordship would recommend me to a connection of that sort, with a girl of obscure birth, whose only dowry is her beauty, and who is evidently in a state of dependency."