Library / English Dictionary

ENDOW

Pronunciation (US):

(GB):

 I. (verb) 

Sense 1

Meaning:

Furnish with an endowment

Example:

When she got married, she got dowered

Synonyms:

dower; endow

Classified under:

Verbs of buying, selling, owning

Hypernyms (to "endow" is one way to...):

gift; give; present (give as a present; make a gift of)

Troponyms (each of the following is one way to "endow"):

benefice (endow with a benefice)

Sentence frames:

Somebody ----s somebody
Somebody ----s somebody with something

Derivation:

endowment (the act of endowing with a permanent source of income)

endowment (the capital that provides income for an institution)

Sense 2

Meaning:

Give qualities or abilities to

Synonyms:

empower; endow; endue; gift; indue; invest

Classified under:

Verbs of political and social activities and events

Hypernyms (to "endow" is one way to...):

enable (render capable or able for some task)

Troponyms (each of the following is one way to "endow"):

cover (invest with a large or excessive amount of something)

Sentence frame:

Somebody ----s somebody with something

Derivation:

endowment (natural abilities or qualities)

Credits

 Context examples: 

I was born in the year 18— to a large fortune, endowed besides with excellent parts, inclined by nature to industry, fond of the respect of the wise and good among my fellowmen, and thus, as might have been supposed, with every guarantee of an honourable and distinguished future.

(The Strange Case Of Dr. Jekyll And Mr. Hyde, by Robert Louis Stevenson)

What she would engage to do towards augmenting their income was next to be considered; and here it plainly appeared, that though Edward was now her only son, he was by no means her eldest; for while Robert was inevitably endowed with a thousand pounds a-year, not the smallest objection was made against Edward's taking orders for the sake of two hundred and fifty at the utmost; nor was anything promised either for the present or in future, beyond the ten thousand pounds, which had been given with Fanny.

(Sense and Sensibility, by Jane Austen)

As these noble Houyhnhnms are endowed by nature with a general disposition to all virtues, and have no conceptions or ideas of what is evil in a rational creature, so their grand maxim is, to cultivate reason, and to be wholly governed by it.

(Gulliver's Travels into several remote nations of the world, by Jonathan Swift)

Many were the inquiries she was eager to make of Miss Tilney; but so active were her thoughts, that when these inquiries were answered, she was hardly more assured than before, of Northanger Abbey having been a richly endowed convent at the time of the Reformation, of its having fallen into the hands of an ancestor of the Tilneys on its dissolution, of a large portion of the ancient building still making a part of the present dwelling although the rest was decayed, or of its standing low in a valley, sheltered from the north and east by rising woods of oak.

(Northanger Abbey, by Jane Austen)

The other, dark, clear-cut, and elegant, hardly yet of middle age, and endowed with every beauty of body and of mind, was the Right Honourable Trelawney Hope, Secretary for European Affairs, and the most rising statesman in the country.

(The Return of Sherlock Holmes, by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle)

I did feel, sometimes, for a little while, that I could have wished my wife had been my counsellor; had had more character and purpose, to sustain me and improve me by; had been endowed with power to fill up the void which somewhere seemed to be about me; but I felt as if this were an unearthly consummation of my happiness, that never had been meant to be, and never could have been.

(David Copperfield, by Charles Dickens)

You had endowed me with perceptions and passions and then cast me abroad an object for the scorn and horror of mankind.

(Frankenstein, by Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley)

Nature had surely formed her in a partial mood; and, forgetting her usual stinted step-mother dole of gifts, had endowed this, her darling, with a grand-dame's bounty.

(Jane Eyre, by Charlotte Brontë)

A strange effect of narrow principles and views! that a prince possessed of every quality which procures veneration, love, and esteem; of strong parts, great wisdom, and profound learning, endowed with admirable talents, and almost adored by his subjects, should, from a nice, unnecessary scruple, whereof in Europe we can have no conception, let slip an opportunity put into his hands that would have made him absolute master of the lives, the liberties, and the fortunes of his people!

(Gulliver's Travels into several remote nations of the world, by Jonathan Swift)

Mrs. Palmer, on the contrary, who was strongly endowed by nature with a turn for being uniformly civil and happy, was hardly seated before her admiration of the parlour and every thing in it burst forth.

(Sense and Sensibility, by Jane Austen)