endow
Americanverb (used with object)
-
endows,
present (3rd person singular)
-
endowed,
past participle, past
-
endowing
present participle
verb (used without object)
-
endows,
present (3rd person singular)
-
endowed,
past participle, past
-
endowing
present participle
verb
-
to provide with or bequeath a source of permanent income
-
(usually foll by with) to provide (with qualities, characteristics, etc)
-
obsolete to provide with a dower
Other Word Forms
Derived Forms
-
endowernoun
-
reendowverb (used with object)
-
superendowverb (used with object)
-
unendowingadjective
Inflected Forms
Participles
Conjugated Forms
Present
-
endowsimple
-
endowssimple
-
have endowedperfect
-
has endowedperfect
-
am endowingprogressive
-
are endowingprogressive
-
is endowingprogressive
-
have been endowingperfect progressive
-
has been endowingperfect progressive
Past
-
endowedsimple
-
had endowedperfect
-
was endowingprogressive
-
were endowingprogressive
-
had been endowingperfect progressive
Future
Etymology
Origin of endow
First recorded in 1350–1400; Middle English endowen, from Old French endouer, equivalent to en- en- 1 + douer, from Latin dōtāre “to dower,” equivalent to dōt- (stem of dōs ) “dowry” + -āre infinitive suffix
Explanation
To endow is to furnish, but not with furniture. If you've been endowed with something, it means you've been given a gift — most likely a gift that can't be returned or exchanged, like a sense of humor or athletic ability or trust. We usually use endow to refer to an ability or a quality, but you can endow someone with money, too. Endow is related to the word dowry, which is a gift that a man — or sometimes a woman — receives from his or her fiancé’s family before the wedding. The practice of giving dowries has fallen out of fashion in most Western countries, but there are still many parts of the world where it's common for the bride's family to provide the groom with an endowment of land and livestock.
Vocabulary lists containing endow
The Vocabulary.com Top 1000
Looking to grow your vocabulary? Check out this interactive, curated word list from our team of English language specialists at Vocabulary.com – one of over 17,000 lists we've built to help learners worldwide!
Top 50 Wordle Words of 2024
Interested in learning more words like this one? Our team at Vocabulary.com has got you covered! You can review flashcards, quiz yourself, practice spelling, and more – and it's all completely free to use!
Warriors Don't Cry
Want to remember this word for good? Start your learning journey today with our library of interactive, themed word lists built by the experts at Vocabulary.com – we'll help you make the most of your study time!
Example Sentences
Examples are provided to illustrate real-world usage of words in context. Any opinions expressed do not reflect the views of Dictionary.com.
See Examples For:
David A. Duffield, the founder of PeopleSoft and Workday, is giving $371.5 million to Cornell University, largely to endow the Ivy League school’s engineering college, which will be named after him.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Jan. 22, 2026
Christopher Mowod can’t quite endow this “sad man in a blanket,” as Simon dubs his bundled-up bandmate, with the same level of fey madness that Brill was able to entertainingly supply.
From Los Angeles Times ● Dec. 12, 2025
Unlike the novelists I avidly read in my formative years, these playwrights invited actors to endow their words with body and voice.
From Los Angeles Times ● Dec. 4, 2024
For breeders to make use of that diversity, however, they need to know which landraces could endow wheat with potentially desirable traits.
From Science Magazine ● Jun. 16, 2024
The main challenge lay in finding an entity to endow.
From "Big Science" by Michael Hiltzik
In 2013 Miller teamed up with two co-authors of the new paper, Mattia Rigotti of IBM Research and Stefano Fusi of Columbia University, to show how mixed selectivity endows the brain with powerful computational flexibility.
From Science Daily ● May 10, 2024
On the one hand, the baleen whales' unusual larynx endows them with a remarkable ability.
From Salon ● Feb. 23, 2024
Umaña endows Victoria with a fiery dignity that doesn’t need the replay of her fraught last days in office.
From Los Angeles Times ● Feb. 14, 2024
The water warms the air above the sea surface, which endows passing storms with more energy and can allow them to generate fiercer winds.
From Seattle Times ● Aug. 29, 2023
The selective highlighting endows the lifesize figure of David and the gruesome head with a startling presence.
From "History of Art, Volume 1" by H.W. Janson
Gracias has also endowed a Harvard program with a $16 million donation to fund a professorship and research on psychedelics in society and culture.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Sep. 5, 2026
The idea that anyone can suddenly be endowed with superhuman specialness simply by being in the right place at the right time is a little like daydreaming about winning the lottery.
From Salon ● Aug. 16, 2026
But they note in some districts the percentage of foreign owners already exceeds the 15 percent limit, particularly in "territories endowed with water and mineral resources, or logistical advantages," such as ports.
From Barron's ● Aug. 7, 2026
That practice must end, because it is a "complete devaluation of the resource that is so fortunately endowed in places like Nigeria and other countries," he told BBC Focus on Africa.
From BBC ● Jul. 20, 2026
As I write this, organisms endowed with genomes are learning to change the heritable features of organisms endowed with genomes.
From "The Gene" by Siddhartha Mukherjee
I am not sure endowing Sonny with a social conscience, presumably intended to point up the material’s contemporary relevance, is an improvement.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Mar. 31, 2026
As public funding for higher education has eroded, universities have increasingly turned to wealthy donors to underwrite major projects and supplement budgets by endowing professorships and research centers.
From Salon ● Feb. 28, 2026
Following the surgery, Jane had announced that as a gesture of gratitude, her family would be endowing a chair for the doctor who’d performed her surgery at the university hospital where she worked.
From Slate ● Mar. 23, 2025
As the bone-in chicken thighs roast, the fat from the skin renders, endowing the buttered coating with a deep and delightful crunch.
From Seattle Times ● Nov. 5, 2023
This difference in their points of view did not prevent Copley from endowing Revere’s portrait with an ingenious significance and penetrating characterization.
From "History of Art, Volume 1" by H.W. Janson
Definitions and idiom definitions from Dictionary.com Unabridged, based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2023
Idioms from The American Heritage® Idioms Dictionary copyright © 2002, 2001, 1995 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company.
