endow

English

Alternative forms

Etymology

From Middle English endowen, endouen, from Anglo-Norman endouer, en- + Old French douer (from Latin dōtāre (“to endow”), from dōs, dōtis (“gift; dowry”)).

Pronunciation
  • IPA(key): /ɪnˈdaʊ/
  • Rhymes: -aʊ

Verb

endow (third-person singular simple present endows, present participle endowing, simple past and past participle endowed)

  1. (archaic, transitive) To provide with a dower
    • 1841, Charles Dickens, chapter 20, in Barnaby Rudge:
      Finding her quite incorrigible in this respect, Emma suffered her to depart; but not before she had confided to her that important and never-sufficiently-to-be-taken- care-of answer, and endowed her moreover with a pretty little bracelet as a keepsake.
  2. (transitive) To provide with money or other benefits, as a permanent fund for support
    • 1 January 2017, Norbert Haering in Global Research, A Well-Kept Open Secret: Washington Is Behind India’s Brutal Demonetization Project
      He already was a President of the American Finance Association and inaugural recipient of its Fisher-Black-Prize in financial research. He won the handsomely endowed prizes of Infosys for economic research and of Deutsche Bank for financial economics as well as the Financial Times/Goldman Sachs Prize for best economics book.
  3. (transitive, followed by "with" or, rarely, by "of") To enrich or furnish with something as a gift, quality or faculty
    • 7 April 2016, Peter Bradshaw writing in The Guardian, Dheepan review – a crime drama packed with epiphanic grandeur
      It’s bulging with giant confidence and packed with outbursts of that mysterious epiphanic grandeur, like moments of sunlight breaking through cloud-cover, with which Audiard endows apparently normal sequences and everyday details.
    • 1891, James Jeffrey Roche, edited by Mary O'Reilly, Life of John Boyle O'Reilly
      Thus was he fitted to fulfill worthily the vocation of a poet. For it is not aimlessly that Divine Providence endows a human being with qualities so exceptional and exalted.
  4. (transitive, usually in passive) To be furnished with something naturally.
    She was endowed with a beautiful voice.

Synonyms

Derived terms

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