King James Bible Dictionary

ENDOW', verb transitive [Latin dos, doto, or a different Celtic root.]

1. To furnish with a portion of goods or estate, called dower; to settle a dower on, as on a married woman or widow.

A wife is by law entitled to be endowed of all lands and tenements, of which her husband was seized in fee simple or fee tail during the coverture.

2. To settle on, as a permanent provision; to furnish with a permanent fund of property; as, to endow a church; to endow a college with a fund to support a professor.

3. To enrich or furnish with any gift, quality or faculty; to indue. Man is endowed by his maker with reason.

ENDOW'ED, participle passive Furnished with a portion of estate; having dower settled on; supplied with a permanent fund; indued.

ENDOW'ING, participle present tense Settling a dower on; furnishing with a permanent fund; inducing.

ENDOW'MENT, noun The act of settling dower on a woman, or of settling a fund or permanent provision for the support of a parson or vicar, or of a professor, etc.

1. That which is bestowed or settled on; property, fund or revenue permanently appropriated to any object; as the endowments of a church, of a hospital, or of a college.

2. That which is given or bestowed on the person or mind by the creator; gift of nature; any quality or faculty bestowed by the creator. Natural activity of limbs is an endowment of the body; natural vigor of intellect is an endowment of the mind. Chatham and Burke, in Great Britain, and Jan, Ellsworth and Hamilton, in America, possessed uncommon endowments of mind.