Showing results for "endowed"

• past participle of endow.
• past tense form of endow.

endowed

American  

[en-doud] / ɛnˈdaʊd /

adjective

1. supported by a permanent fund or source of income.

   A cooperative owned by 50 families set up the endowed scholarship in 2000.

2. naturally possessing a certain quality, talent, physical feature, or other advantage, especially a sexually attractive feature.

   She bunched up the blouse behind her to look at herself and sighed at her modestly endowed body.

   Countries far less endowed than ours have made greater economic progress through greater coherence and unity of purpose.

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verb

1. the simple past tense and past participle of endow.

Other Word Forms

• unendowed
  adjective
• well-endowed
  adjective

Etymology

Origin of endowed

endow ( def. ) + -ed ² ( def. )

Explanation

When you're stuck on a really tricky math problem, you might ask your best friend for help, especially if she happens to be endowed with impressive mathematical skills. Endowed means "provided or equipped with." When you have a special ability, you can say you're endowed with it. You can also be endowed with a quality, like beauty. Endowed is often used to describe something you're born with, though it can also refer to something that's been learned. Endowed traditionally meant "provided with money," especially when it came to a woman's dowry, the money she brought into a marriage. It's still used this way when someone donates, or endows, money to an institution.

Example Sentences

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

Some have endowed their orders with moral condemnation.

From Los Angeles Times • Feb. 5, 2026

Language, which evolved within the past 200,000 years, endowed our species with the ability to plan for the future and reflect on the past, thus extending our selves backward and forward in time.

From The Wall Street Journal • Feb. 3, 2026

Much of the picture is devoted to songs and dances, with the children trying to determine whether this ragtag minstrel is really endowed with supernatural abilities.

From The Wall Street Journal • Feb. 2, 2026

Albus Dumbledore was never proud or vain; he could find something to value in anyone, however apparently insignificant or wretched, and I believe that his early losses endowed him with great humanity and sympathy.

From "Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows" by J.K. Rowling