dowries

Noun

dowry (countable and uncountable, plural dowries)

1. Payment, such as property or money, paid by the bride's family to the groom or his family at the time of marriage.

   Antonyms:

   bride price, reverse dowry, dower

2. (uncommon) Payment by the groom or his family to the bride's family.
   • The family of the groom makes sure the new couple has a house to live in and land to cultivate; they will also pay for the dowry (crucial, for without dowry the new father has no rights over his children; Trouwborst 1962: 136ff.)2009, Peter Uvin, Life after Violence: A People's Story of Burundi, page 125

   Synonyms:

   bride price, reverse dowry, dower

3. (obsolete) Inheritance from a deceased husband to his widow.

   Synonyms:

   dower

4. A natural gift or talent.
5. (informal) A large amount.
   • But no palace had so fair a ceiling; for from the wooden beams were suspended a whole dowry of copper vessels—pails, cauldrons, water pots, of every colour from lustrous black to the palest pink.1928, E. M. Forster, The Eternal Moment

See all 6 meanings of dowry