endow
Americanverb (used with object)
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endows,
present (3rd person singular)
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endowed,
past participle, past
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endowing
present participle
verb (used without object)
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endows,
present (3rd person singular)
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endowed,
past participle, past
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endowing
present participle
verb
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to provide with or bequeath a source of permanent income
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(usually foll by with) to provide (with qualities, characteristics, etc)
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obsolete to provide with a dower
Other Word Forms
Derived Forms
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endowernoun
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reendowverb (used with object)
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superendowverb (used with object)
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unendowingadjective
Inflected Forms
Participles
Conjugated Forms
Present
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endowsimple
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endowssimple
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have endowedperfect
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has endowedperfect
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am endowingprogressive
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are endowingprogressive
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is endowingprogressive
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have been endowingperfect progressive
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has been endowingperfect progressive
Past
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endowedsimple
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had endowedperfect
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was endowingprogressive
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were endowingprogressive
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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
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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.
See Examples For:
Askell’s aim is to endow Claude with a sense of morality—a digital soul that guides the millions of conversations it has with people every week.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Feb. 13, 2026
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
Many people know fish sauce from Asian cuisines, where it is used to endow dishes with umami.
From Science Daily ● Apr. 29, 2024
According to Jamie Lincoln Kitman, writing in The Nation in 2000, Ethyl executives allegedly offered to endow a chair at Caltech "if Patterson was sent packing."
From "A Short History of Nearly Everything" by Bill Bryson
But there’s a primal quality to the play’s conflicts that endows the work with an eternal vitality in the theater.
From Los Angeles Times ● Dec. 15, 2025
"Mixed selectivity is the property that endows us with our flexibility, cognitive capacity, and ability to be creative. It is the secret to maximizing computational power which is essentially the underpinnings of intelligence."
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
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
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
It is far too soon to say what ways the fabulous new Bowl sound system, which happens to be AI endowed, might become friend and/or foe.
From Los Angeles Times ● Jul. 16, 2026
It combined the Greek prefix eu—“good”—with genesis: “good in stock, hereditarily endowed with noble qualities.”
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
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
Mercy, it says, “is the act of withholding deserved punishment, while grace is the act of endowing unmerited favor.”
From Salon ● Dec. 18, 2024
She’s more grounded than Lenk, who leaned into Bobbie’s sphinx-like nature, endowing the character with a Mona Lisa smile.
From Los Angeles Times ● Aug. 3, 2024
Then he saw her — his sister, no shadow; her arms reached up the trembling car hood, the rough motor endowing her fine fingers, her knobby wrists, with strangely nervous life.
From "Typical American" by Gish Jen
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.
