dower
noun · verb
Simple meaning
A life estate to which a wife is entitled on the death of her husband.
Pronunciation
Say it like this:
dowrIPA pronunciation (US)
ˈdaʊɹ
This word is pronounced essentially the same in American and British English, so one transcription covers both.
IPA (International Phonetic Alphabet) is a standard way of writing speech sounds.
Definition
Everyday modern meanings first, grouped by part of speech.
noun
law
A life estate to which a wife is entitled on the death of her husband
law
The part of or interest in a deceased husband's property provided to his widow, usually in the form of a life estate.
law
Money or property brought by a woman to her husband at marriage
law
Property given by a groom to his bride or her family, at or before their wedding, in order to legitimize the marriage
verb
transitive
To endow.
transitive
To give a dower or dowry to.
Word at a Glance
- Difficulty
- C2 · Proficient (estimated)
- Frequency
- Rare
Word Aura™
How this word commonly comes across.
Aura for this meaning
This meaning: A life estate to which a wife is entitled on the death of her husband
Used this way, dower is a specialist word with a clearly unfavourable pull. This is a legal use: the wording is institutional and carries a defined meaning in law rather than a loose everyday one.
- Emotional tone
- Negative
- Formality
- Specialist/technical
- Intensity
- Moderate
- How common
- Specialized
- Connotation
- Serious and weighty
- Usage feel
- Clinical and detached
Where it naturally appears
- Law/legal
- Government/politics
- Academic writing
Usage note
In general conversation this sense usually needs explaining — outside its field, people reach for a plainer word.
Word Aura describes common impressions, not a measurement. Tone changes with sentence, speaker, relationship and situation.
More ways to use dower
- “When she got married, she got dowered.”verb
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Common Patterns and Combinations
How this word naturally appears with others.
More about this wordSynonyms, forms, origin
Synonyms
Sense: to endow
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Dictionary data from Wiktionary via the Free Dictionary API. Simple meanings, combinations and word intelligence are built from verified reference data, no AI is used to load this page.