endow
Americanverb (used with object)
verb (used without object)
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:
She believed, as Arendt never could have, in the judgment of history as “an objective suprahuman process” that, like God for believers, would remember even trivial human events and endow all experience with meaning.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Apr. 24, 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
This is why they made no effort to prepare the child for life, since the stars had already conspired to endow her with so many gifts.
From "The House of the Spirits: A Novel" by Isabel Allende
The production can’t hide the show’s meretricious heart, but like the song that Scherzinger endows with Puccini-esque splendor, Lloyd has discovered “new ways to dream” Webber’s musical.
From Los Angeles Times ● Nov. 12, 2024
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
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
Anyway, she had not gone through male puberty, which theoretically might have endowed her with a competitive advantage, because she had been taking puberty blockers and female hormones.
From Los Angeles Times ● Jul. 7, 2026
Still, it is loved best for the characterizations of the four March sisters, who are endowed with bright, individual personalities.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Jun. 19, 2026
He ran for president in 1940, endowed an eponymous college and launched a foundation to overcome gravity.
From The Wall Street Journal ● May 13, 2026
We have no heirs and plan to leave our assets to an endowed scholarship at my alma mater, plus a smaller gift to a local university program.
From MarketWatch ● Apr. 8, 2026
Victoria’s mother concluded that Victoria must have been endowed with mystical powers.
From "Votes for Women!" by Winifred Conkling
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
Similarly, Ibargüen showed that he was not bound to the past when he steered Knight away from endowing journalism professorships at universities.
From Seattle Times ● Mar. 24, 2023
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.
