endow

verb

en·​dow in-ˈdau̇ 

en-

endowed; endowing; endows

transitive verb

1

: to furnish with an income

especially : to make a grant of money providing for the continuing support or maintenance of

endow a hospital

2

: to furnish with a dower

3

: to provide with something freely or naturally

endowed with a good sense of humor

Synonyms of endow

• gift
• bless
• equip

Examples of endow in a Sentence

The wealthy couple endowed a new wing of the hospital.

She plans to endow a faculty position at the university.

The money will be used to endow the museum and research facility.

Recent Examples on the Web

Seeing an old bulky PC with a PC-DOS command line OS takes those of us of a certain age back to the heady days when computers were exciting and new, even though they had not yet been endowed with the eerie cognitive powers of LLMs. — John Werner, Forbes.com, 29 July 2026

But they’re endowed with a fundamentally different intelligence, one shaped by a separate evolutionary path and defined by a nervous system that’s distributed throughout their bodies rather than centralized like that of the brains of most animals. — Cody Cottier, Scientific American, 29 July 2026

For professors who studied literary themes and metaphors for a living, theory endowed their scholarship with the armature of a larger purpose, transforming textual analysis into jargony skirmishes in a crusade for social justice. — Emily Eakin, Harpers Magazine, 28 July 2026

The catharsis of moments like this—and the unpredictability with which they’re deployed—endows Oen Sujet’s music with delight worth chasing, but the climb doesn’t always feel equal to the drop. — Maxie Younger, Pitchfork, 24 July 2026

Word History

Etymology

Middle English, from Anglo-French endower, from en- + dower, douer to endow, from Latin dotare, from dot-, dos gift, dowry — more at date

First Known Use

15th century, in the meaning defined at sense 3

Phrases Containing endow

• re-endow

Rhymes for endow

• allow
• avow
• chiao
• eyebrow
• highbrow
• lanao
• meow
• powwow
• somehow
• anyhow
• carabao
• disallow

Kids Definition

endow

verb

en·​dow in-ˈdau̇ 

1

: to provide with money for support or maintenance

2

: to furnish with something freely or naturally

humans are endowed with reason

Legal Definition

endow

transitive verb

en·​dow in-ˈdau̇ 

: to furnish with income

especially : to make a grant of money providing for the continuing support or maintenance of

a scholarship endowed by the testator

Etymology

Anglo-French endower, from Old French en-, prefix stressing completion + douer to endow, from Latin dotare, from dot-, dos gift, dowry