dowry

From Middle English dowarye, dowerie, from Anglo-Norman dowarie, douarie, from Old French douaire, from Medieval Latin dōtārium, from Latin dōs.

• (Received Pronunciation): IPA^(key): /ˈdaʊəɹi/
• (US): IPA^(key): /ˈdaʊɹi/
• Rhymes: -aʊəɹi, -aʊɹi
• Rhymes: -aʊɹi

dowry (countable and uncountable, plural dowries)

1. Payment, such as property or money, paid by the bride's family to the groom or his family at the time of marriage.[1]
2. (less common) Payment by the groom or his family to the bride's family: bride price.
   • 2009, Peter Uvin, Life after Violence: A People's Story of Burundi, page 125:

     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.)

3. (obsolete) Dower.
4. A natural gift or talent.

• dower
• bride price

• marriage portion

• reverse dowry
• dowager
• endow

dowry (third-person singular simple present dowries, present participle dowrying, simple past and past participle dowried)

1. To bestow a dowry upon.
   • 1999, Judith Everard, Michael C. E. Jones, Charters Duchess Constance Br, Page xvi
   • 2013 Noreen Giffney, Margrit Shildrick, Theory on the Edge: Irish Studies and the Politics of Sexual Difference, Page 62
   • 1911, Aida Rodman De Milt, Ways and Days Out of London, page 108:

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

• glory box
• hope chest
• trousseau

• rowdy, wordy

dowry

1. Alternative form of dowarye