noun
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the life interest in a part of her husband's estate allotted to a widow by law
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an archaic word for dowry
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a natural gift or talent
verb
Other Word Forms
Etymology
Origin of dower
1250–1300; Middle English dowere < Old French do ( u ) aire < Medieval Latin dōtārium. See dot 2, -ary
Vocabulary lists containing dower
Selection Vocabulary 4, Unit 5
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Vocabulary from the Magna Carta, List 2
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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.
As historians John Dower and Ronald Takaki have shown, such exterminationist sentiments were fueled by anti-Asian racism, which framed the Pacific War in the American imagination as a race war.
From Salon • Aug. 14, 2025
The campaigners are former BBC journalist Laura Trevelyan and her cousin John Dower, who recently apologised to the Caribbean island of Grenada for their family's historic role in the slave trade.
From BBC • Apr. 1, 2023
“It’s a simple question of who gets to decide and under the Texas Constitution … that authority is vested in the governor of the state of Texas,” Dower said.
From Seattle Times • Aug. 20, 2021
It was during the American occupation, as the historian John Dower notes, that Japan instituted what an economist described as the most “restrictive foreign-trade and foreign-exchange control system ever devised by a major free nation.”
From New York Times • Feb. 7, 2018
They accordingly watched the carriage pass through the lodge gates, and then themselves set out for the Dower House.
From The Childerbridge Mystery by Boothby, Guy Newell
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.
