Online dictionaryOnline dictionary
Synonyms, antonyms, pronunciation

  Home
English Dictionary      examples: 'day', 'get rid of', 'New York Bay'




Dower   /daʊr/   Listen
Dower

verb
1.
Furnish with an endowment.  Synonym: endow.






WordNet 3.0 © 2010 Princeton University








Advanced search
     Find words:
Starting with
Ending with
Containing
Matching a pattern  

Synonyms
Antonyms
Quotes
Words linked to  

only single words



Share |
Add this dictionary
to your browser search bar





"Dower" Quotes from Famous Books



... for there's treason in the wind. They'll keep her dower, and send her home with shame Before the ...
— The Saint's Tragedy • Charles Kingsley

... love! Nought can withstand the power Of thy divine, o'ermastering force, To man heaven's richest dower. All know who own thy sovereign sway, No wealth can equal thine, Inspiring and ...
— Home Lyrics • Hannah. S. Battersby

... Palace—M. Aubert and Angele, De la Foret, Lempriere, and Buonespoir—the Queen made Michel de la Foret the gift of a chaplaincy to the Crown. To Monsieur Aubert she gave a small pension, and in Angele's hands she placed a deed of dower worthy of a ...
— The Judgment House • Gilbert Parker

... discussed before her mother and herself, and even the twins and Miss Bird, though not before the servants, during the last few days. Lord and Lady Alistair MacLeod, she a newly wed American, had motored through Kencote, lunched at the inn and fallen in love with the dower-house. Lady Alistair—he would have nothing to do with it—had made an offer through the Squire's agent for a lease of the house, at a rental about four times its market value. The Squire did not want the money, but business was business. And the MacLeods would be "nice people to have about the ...
— The Squire's Daughter - Being the First Book in the Chronicles of the Clintons • Archibald Marshall

... of Antinous to send the mother away, Telemachus makes a noble, yes, a heroic response. It would be wrong all around, wrong to the mother, wrong to her father, unless he (Telemachus) restored the dower, wrong to the Gods; vengeance from the Erinyes, and nemesis from man would come upon him for such a deed. Thus the young hero appeals to the divine order and puts himself in harmony with its behests. Boldly he declares, that if the ...
— Homer's Odyssey - A Commentary • Denton J. Snider

... By best advice of all our Cardinals, Today shall be enlarged till it be made Past all dissolving. Then to our council table Shall she be called, that read aloud, she told The church commands her quick return for Florence With such a dower as Spain received with her, And that they will not hazard heaven's dire curse To yield to a match unlawful, which shall taint The issue of the King with bastardy. This done, in state majestic come you forth, Our new crowned Queen in sight of all ...
— The Noble Spanish Soldier • Thomas Dekker

... Julia dear, for the sprouting willows, The opening flowers, and the gleaming brooks, And hollows, green in the sun, are waiting Their dower of ...
— Poetical Works of William Cullen Bryant - Household Edition • William Cullen Bryant

... some strange power Like to the essence in a rare June day, Or like the subtle perfume of a flower. Awed and inspired, your listeners turned away, Baptized in your sweet music's holy shower. For through that music shone the glorious dower Of your great soul: here all ...
— Yesterdays • Ella Wheeler Wilcox

... practical and strictly business-like way of arranging marriages from the earliest times. The shrewdest provision has always been made for the dower and for the good of the State; private and public interest being consulted, the small matters of affections have been left to the chances of association; and it does not seem that Venetian society ...
— Venetian Life • W. D. Howells

... deep, inborn delight glows in her young veins; unmingled—untroubled, not to be reached or ravished by human agency, because by no human agency bestowed: the pure gift of God to His creature, the free dower of Nature to her child. This joy gives her experience of a genii-life. Buoyant, by green steps, by glad hills, all verdure and light, she reaches a station scarcely lower than that whence angels looked down on the dreamer of Bethel, and her eye seeks, and her soul possesses, the ...
— The Three Brontes • May Sinclair

... how was she to endure disgrace! Alas for the clan, whose history was about to cease—smothered in the defiling garment of ill-gotten wealth! Miserable, humiliating close to ancient story! She had no doubt as to her son's intention, although he had said nothing; she KNEW that his refusal of dower would be his plea in justification; but would that deliver them from the degrading approval of the world? How many, if they ever heard of it, would believe that the poor, high-souled Macruadh declined ...
— What's Mine's Mine • George MacDonald

... ask twice over, Lest he should think she views with too much rapture Her first fine wealthy capture! But,—though her path looks smooth, and though, alack, All will he gay, till Time has painted black The Marigold, her Mother's chosen flower,— Far brighter is my Heartsease, Love's own dower. ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 102, April 23, 1892 • Various

... a kind of joking and badinage that should never be heard among well-bred young people in society—that about courtship and marriage. Much harm, much blunting of fine sensibilities, much destruction of that delicate modesty which is the priceless dower of young girlhood, comes of such jesting and joking where it is permitted without restraint or reproof. A young girl may not be called upon to reprove it, but she certainly can shun the company of those who are given ...
— Letters to a Daughter and A Little Sermon to School Girls • Helen Ekin Starrett

... bright must have been superb. We surmised that these were intended for the bridal apartments, but M. Gambeau could not support our conjectures with any positive information. The bed is really a work of art, canopied and covered with white satin, over which is the dower of a princess in exquisite point lace. The pillow-slips and centre-piece of the coverlet are perfect gems—the richest and most lovely lace ...
— Lippincott's Magazine, Vol. 20, August 1877 • Various

... the Angel. "Your uncle says your grandmother left your father her dower house and estate, because she knew his father would cut him off. You get that, and all your share of your grandfather's property besides. It is all set off for you and waiting. Lord O'More told me so. I suspect you are richer ...
— Freckles • Gene Stratton-Porter

... song twice over, Lest you should think he never could recapture The first fine careless rapture! And though the fields look rough with hoary dew, All will be gay when noontide wakes anew The buttercups, the little children's dower —Far brighter than this gaudy ...
— Browning's Shorter Poems • Robert Browning

... feared. Still, lest she should spawn more mischief or murder, she must be kept close till we and our councillors decide where she shall dwell in future. Ho! guards, take my royal father's widow to the dower-palace, and there watch her well. If she escapes, you shall die beneath the rods. Away with the snake before it begins to ...
— The Wanderer's Necklace • H. Rider Haggard

... of excommunicating persons for the sake of fees, but was highly praised in 1635 and soon after appointed a Judge Marshal. If so, his wife was a widow when she came to him, as she is spoken of in 1638 as "Lady Dorothy Smith, wife of Sir Nicholas Smith, deceased". She brought him a rich dower, and her death ...
— The Hesperides & Noble Numbers: Vol. 1 and 2 • Robert Herrick

... and her mother lived in the Dower House, thrown to them, as a piece of bread might be tossed from a rich man's table, when Corgarff was declared forfeit and the castle occupied by soldiery. Her men-folk had been out with Charlie and had not come ...
— The Black Colonel • James Milne

... a native, the first claim is that of his creditors; the next is that of his widow, who is entitled to the dower[34] promised by her husband to her father, if, not already paid, and to one-eighth of the remainder; the rest is divided among the children. A son's share is double that of a daughter. If they agree, ...
— An Account of Timbuctoo and Housa Territories in the Interior of Africa • Abd Salam Shabeeny

... youths sent to learn their military duty and the ways of the world: a whole pack of men without wives, without homes, and usually without fortune. High above all this deferential male crowd, moves the lady of the castle: highborn, proud, having brought her husband a dower of fiefs often equal to his own, and of vassals devoted to her race. About her she has no equals; her daughters, scarcely out of the nurse's hands, are given away in marriage; and her companions, if companions they may be called, are the waiting ladies, ...
— Euphorion - Being Studies of the Antique and the Mediaeval in the - Renaissance - Vol. II • Vernon Lee

... shut up in a prison. The causes were not difficult to trace: love of dress, love of flattery, love of excitement. They had not dresses like the other ladies, so they stole them; they could not pay for flattery by distinctions, and the dower of a worldly marriage, so they paid by the profanation of their persons. In excitement, more and more madly sought from day to day, they drowned ...
— Woman in the Ninteenth Century - and Kindred Papers Relating to the Sphere, Condition - and Duties, of Woman. • Margaret Fuller Ossoli

... husband or dower; I never sigh to see 'gyps' at my feet; I make the butter fly, all in an hour, Taking it home for my ...
— Collections and Recollections • George William Erskine Russell

... far as to smile faintly. It was just the sort of deficiency which she had it in her power to make up. The reflection set her to dreaming when she wanted to be doing something else. She could have brought him the dower of all the things he didn't know, while he could give her.... But she caught ...
— The Street Called Straight • Basil King

... Jase Day," gasped his wife, regaining her usual volubility, "what have I allus told ye? If ye'd put the homestead in my name they couldn't get that away from ye. It's what I allus wanted ye to do. And I ain't even got dower right in it, as I'd oughter have. Ye don't 'pear to have the sense ye was born with. Write your name on another man's note—an' for sech a feller as Tom Hotchkiss—when ye didn't know ...
— The Mission of Janice Day • Helen Beecher Long

... prosewriter in dialect; his dialect sketches which have for some years appeared in The Yorkshire Observer are full of broad humour and dramatic power, and his dainty little lyric "Spring" (p. 87) is a sufficient indication that he has also the dower of the poet. In Alderman Ben Turner of Batley Yorkshire possesses a courageous advocate of the social betterment of the working man and woman, and in the midst of a busy life he has, found' time to give utterance to his indignation and his faith in dialect-poems which ...
— Yorkshire Dialect Poems • F.W. Moorman

... kind of mind, as he trudged along he began ruminating over the question of Bubbles' marriage settlements. On one thing he was determined. Nothing should induce him so to arrange matters that in the event of his death Bubbles should be able to dower some worthless fortune-hunter with his, Tapster's, wealth! He felt certain that her father's solicitors would try and arrange that this might come to pass—"lawyers are such cunning devils"—and he grew purple with ...
— From Out the Vasty Deep • Mrs. Belloc Lowndes

... persons to burn golden embroideries and tapestries, and melt down the ore they contain. How little of all that human skill and invention have carefully elaborated is now preserved to us! To gold and silver textiles their materials have been often a fatal dower. ...
— Needlework As Art • Marian Alford

... be saved, for Effie's sake. She had known a cruel want with me, and she must never know another while she bore my name. I looked my misfortune in the face and ceased to feel it one; for the diminished fortune was still ample for my darling's dower, and now what need had I of any but the ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume V, Number 29, March, 1860 - A Magazine Of Literature, Art, And Politics • Various

... all the Balconies and Windows as I rode to the Hall where the Assizes were held. But when I came there, a Beautiful Creature in a Widow's Habit sat in Court to hear the Event of a Cause concerning her Dower. This commanding Creature (who was born for Destruction of all who behold her) put on such a Resignation in her Countenance, and bore the Whispers of all around the Court with such a pretty Uneasiness, I warrant you, and then recovered her self from one Eye to another, 'till she was perfectly ...
— The Spectator, Volumes 1, 2 and 3 - With Translations and Index for the Series • Joseph Addison and Richard Steele

... bent spray's edge— That's the wise thrush; he sings each song twice over, Lest you should think he never could recapture The first fine careless rapture! And though the fields look rough with hoary dew, All will be gay, when noontide wakes anew The buttercups, the little children's dower; —Far ...
— The Poetry Of Robert Browning • Stopford A. Brooke

... John's service in Haddon Hall negotiations for Dorothy's marriage with Lord Stanley were progressing slowly but surely. Arrangements for the marriage settlement by the Stanleys, and for Dorothy's dower to be given by Sir George, were matters that the King of the Peak approached boldly as he would have met any other affair of business. But the Earl of Derby, whose mind moved slowly, desiring that a generous portion of the Vernon wealth should ...
— Dorothy Vernon of Haddon Hall • Charles Major

... let thy graces blend With loveliest Nature all that Art can lend. Come from the bowers where Summer's life-blood flows Through the red lips of June's half-open rose, Dressed in bright hues, the loving sunshine's dower; For tranquil Nature owns no mourning flower. Come from the forest where the beech's screen Bars the fierce moonbeam with its flakes of green; Stay the rude axe that bares the shadowy plains, Stanch the deep wound That ...
— The Poetical Works of Oliver Wendell Holmes, Complete • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr.

... time The promise of the prime Seem'd to come true at last, O Abbey old! It seem'd, a child of light did bring the dower Foreshown thee in thy consecration-hour, And in thy courts his shining freight unroll'd: Bright wits, and instincts sure, And goodness warm, and truth without alloy, And temper sweet, and love of all things pure, And joy in light, and power ...
— Poetical Works of Matthew Arnold • Matthew Arnold

... swung With a man in it, and a great wave fell Within a stone's cast! Words may never tell The passion of the moment, when I flung All childish records by, and felt arise A thing that died no more! An awful power I claimed with trembling hands and eager eyes, Mine, mine for ever, an immortal dower.— The noise of waters soundeth to this hour, When I look seaward through the ...
— Robert Falconer • George MacDonald

... offence. What the deuce right had this fellow to make misery repulsive? And it was over my wedding song that he had tortured himself into this ludicrous condition! Yet again it was a pleasant paradox of Nature's to dower this carcass with the sensibility which might have given a crowning charm to the beauty of Coralie. In him it could attract no love, to him it could bring no happiness. Probably it caused him to play the piano better; if this justifies ...
— The King's Mirror • Anthony Hope

... an instant," said Harold, stung to the quick. "Not, couldst thou offer me all Mercia as her dower, would I wed the daughter of Algar; and bend my knee, as a son to a wife's father, to the man who despises my lineage, while ...
— Harold, Complete - The Last Of The Saxon Kings • Edward Bulwer-Lytton

... the West!—upon thy rocky throne, In solitary grandeur sternly placed; In awful majesty thou sitt'st alone, By Nature's master-hand supremely graced. The world has not thy counterpart—thy dower, Eternal beauty, strength, and ...
— Roughing it in the Bush • Susanna Moodie

... and given to brooding over indefinable woes. He suffered acutely at times from what is now called the melancholia of adolescence. This was a phase of that emotional sensitiveness and nervous instability which are nearly always a part of the poet's dower. ...
— The German Classics of The Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries, • Editor-in-Chief: Kuno Francke

... rose of beauty was your mutual dower, The stainless rose of love, an early flower, The stately blooms of ease and ...
— Verses • Susan Coolidge

... accepted. The reason for this inappropriate match probably lay deeper than the desire to astonish the people of Berlin, for Pueckler, with all his surface romanticism, had a keen eye to the main chance. His Lucie had only a moderate dower, but the advantage of being son-in-law to the Chancellor of Prussia could hardly be overestimated. Again, the Graf seems to have imagined that in a marriage of convenience with a woman nine years older than himself, he would be able to preserve the liberty of his ...
— Little Memoirs of the Nineteenth Century • George Paston

... manufactory at the dam, by the side of Ralph Hardwick's blacksmith's shop, and money, plate, furniture, and stocks. There were no debts. There was but one child, and, after the assignment of the widow's dower, the estate was Mildred's. Nothing, therefore, could be simpler for the administrators. The girl trusted to the good faith of her stepmother and the justice of the lawyer, who now stood to her in the place of a father. ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 2, Number 9, July, 1858 • Various

... through the moonlight galleries round. O'er beds of violet and through groves of spice, Lead thy proud bride into the nuptial bower; For thou hast bought her with a fearful price, And she hath dowered thee with a fearful dower. The price is life. The dower is death. Accursed loss! Accursed gain! For her thou givest the blessedness of Seth, And to thine arms she brings ...
— The Miscellaneous Writings and Speeches of Lord Macaulay, Vol. 3. (of 4) • Thomas Babington Macaulay

... deal with the machinery of life, and to call it progress. Their very preachers dare not rebuke them. They gloss over the hunting for money and the thrice-sharpened bitterness of Adam's curse, by saying that such things dower a man with a larger range of thoughts and higher aspirations. They do not say, "Free yourselves from your own slavery," but rather, "If you can possibly manage it, do not set quite so much store on ...
— American Notes • Rudyard Kipling

... am very sensible, Husband, that Captain Macheath is worth Money, but I am in doubt whether he hath not two or three Wives already, and then if he should die in a Session or two, Polly's Dower ...
— The Beggar's Opera - to which is prefixed the Musick to each Song • John Gay

... camels he rose to be the protector of the tribe of Abs and the pattern of chivalry, by virtue of great natural powers and in the face of every obstacle. He won possession of his Ibla and gave her the dower of a queen, by adventures the like of which were never known before. There were no Ifrits or Genii to come to his aid, as in the 'Thousand Nights and a Night.' 'Antar' is the epic of success crowning human valor; the tales in the 'Arabian ...
— Library Of The World's Best Literature, Ancient And Modern, Vol. 2 • Charles Dudley Warner

... thirty wives, or as many as they are able to maintain, but the first wife always has the precedence over the others. The husband receives no portion with his wife, but on the contrary has to assign her a dower in cattle, servants, and money, according to his ability. If any of the wives does not live in harmony with the rest, or if she becomes disliked by her husband, it is lawful for him to put her away. They marry their own near relations, and even ...
— A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Vol. 1 • Robert Kerr

... after reading one of the most glowing letters, "oh, was there really ever in any other man's arms but mine a woman who could say such things as these between kisses? O Nell, Nell, thank God that you haven't the dower of such a double fire in your ...
— Saxe Holm's Stories • Helen Hunt Jackson

... easily overlook that. There are no such strict rules with Protestants, and his family have been for many generations of the Reformed faith. But there is just as weighty an argument on his side—namely, that my father can give me but a scanty dower, and it is a very needful thing for Culverhouse to wed with one who will fill his coffers with broad gold pieces. The Trevlyns, as thou doubtless knowest, have been sorely impoverished ever since the loss of the treasure. My father can give no rich dower with his daughters; wherefore they be no ...
— The Lost Treasure of Trevlyn - A Story of the Days of the Gunpowder Plot • Evelyn Everett-Green

... Brahmanas exclaiming thus, said, 'Stand ye aside as spectators (of the fray) Showering hundreds of arrows furnished with straight points even I shall check, like snakes with mantras, all those angry monarchs.' Having said this, the mighty Arjuna taking up the bow he had obtained as dower accompanied by his brother Bhima stood immovable as a mountain. And beholding those Kshatriyas who were ever furious in battle with Karna ahead, the heroic brothers rushed fearlessly at them like two elephants rushing against a hostile elephant. Then those monarchs eager for the fight fiercely ...
— The Mahabharata of Krishna-Dwaipayana Vyasa, Volume 1 • Kisari Mohan Ganguli

... disposed of according to the statutes of Descent and Distribution. In other words, having failed to dispose of his property by testament, the law directs its disposition. With the exception of certain dower rights ...
— Youth Challenges • Clarence B Kelland

... erect a number of buildings in Tuscany his residence was always at Florence. As examples of such buildings I may cite the palace of the Poppi at Casentino which he built for the count there, who had married the beautiful Gualdrada, with the Casentino as her dower; the Vescovado for the Aretines, and the Palazzo Vecchio of the lords of Pietramela. It was at Florence that he laid the piles of the ponte alla Carraia, then called the ponte Nuovo, in 1218, and finished them in two years. A short while afterwards it was completed in wood, as was then ...
— The Lives of the Painters, Sculptors & Architects, Volume 1 (of 8) • Giorgio Vasari

... am sure, that on some hour Coquetting soft 'twixt sun and shower, He stooped and broke a daisy-flower With heart of tiny span, And bore it as a lover's dower Across the fields ...
— The Little Book of Modern Verse • Jessie B. Rittenhouse

... time of Miss Flaven's marriage to my uncle 'twas a piece of gossip in every month that he had taken her for her dower, which was not inconsiderable; though to hear Mr. and Mrs. Grafton talk they knew not whence the next month's provender was to come. They went to live in Kent County, as I have said, spending some winters in Philadelphia, where Mr. Grafton was thought to have interests, though it never ...
— The Crossing • Winston Churchill

... it," answered Saladin. "The lands I will take and devote the sum of them as you desire—yes, to the last bezant. The jewels also shall be valued, but I give them back to you as my wedding dower. To these nuns further I grant permission to bide here in Jerusalem to nurse the Christian sick, unharmed and unmolested, if so they will, and this because they sheltered you. Ho! minstrels and heralds lead this new-wed pair to the place that has ...
— The Brethren • H. Rider Haggard

... accession of importance was made, Mr. W. G. Smith, with a single initial, and Mr. W. G. Holt, with three more ambitious cuts, being all that 1878 had to show; while 1879 brought forth Mr. Dower Wilson with a "social" in the Almanac, and a nameless F. B. ("Memorials"). In the following year Mr. Athelstan Rusden made his maiden appearance as an illustrator with a Disraeli Elephant, which he had drawn on the wood and sent in from Manchester; but "Moonshine" offered the inducement of ...
— The History of "Punch" • M. H. Spielmann

... star and flower Some effluence rare Was lent thee, a divine but transient dower: Thou yield'st it back from eyes and lips and hair To wave and star ...
— The Poems of William Watson • William Watson

... taken from the ashes of his funeral pyre twenty-five hundred years ago, has played a mighty part in Eastern intrigue, and wars between nations have been fought over it. For centuries it was the priceless marriage dower going with certain favored princesses of royal blood. It was brought from India to Ceylon in the fourth century after Christ. The Malabars secured it by conquest more than once, the Portuguese had it for ...
— East of Suez - Ceylon, India, China and Japan • Frederic Courtland Penfield

... Colonel's son: "I hold by the blood of my clan: Take up the mare for my father's gift — by God, she has carried a man!" The red mare ran to the Colonel's son, and nuzzled against his breast; "We be two strong men," said Kamal then, "but she loveth the younger best. So she shall go with a lifter's dower, my turquoise-studded rein, My broidered saddle and saddle-cloth, and silver stirrups twain." The Colonel's son a pistol drew and held it muzzle-end, "Ye have taken the one from a foe," said he; "will ye take the mate from a friend?" "A ...
— Verses 1889-1896 • Rudyard Kipling

... tell the whole. They agreed to sacrifice themselves, that restitution should be made; the knight to go as a crusader to the Holy Land; the lady, after waiting awhile to tend her aged father, to enter a convent, and restore her dower to the church. Twice had Isabel written that parting, pouring out her heart in the high-souled tender devotion of Roland and his Adeline; and both feeling and description were beautiful and poetical, though unequal. Louisa used to cry ...
— Dynevor Terrace (Vol. I) - or, The Clue of Life • Charlotte M. Yonge

... not like the beings that surround thee; To me, thou art a dream of hope and fear; Yet why of fear?—oh sure! the Power that lent Such gifts, to make thee fair, and excellent; Still watches one whom it has deigned to bless With such a dower of grace and loveliness; Over the dangerous waves 'twill surely steer The richly freighted bark, through storm and blast, And guide it safely to the port at last. Such is my prayer; 'tis warm as ever fell From off my lips: accept it, and farewell! And though ...
— Poems • Frances Anne Butler

... Chitraratha, the Swayamvara of Draupadi, her marriage after the overthrow of rivals in war, the arrival of Vidura, the restoration, Arjuna's exile, the abduction of Subhadra, the gift and receipt of the marriage dower, the burning of the Khandava forest, and the meeting with (the Asura-architect) Maya. The Paushya parva treats of the greatness of Utanka, and the Pauloma, of the sons of Bhrigu. The Astika describes the birth of Garuda and of the Nagas (snakes), the churning of ...
— The Mahabharata of Krishna-Dwaipayana Vyasa - Translated into English Prose - Adi Parva (First Parva, or First Book) • Kisari Mohan Ganguli (Translator)

... demigod. O vis superba formae, a goddess beauty is, whom the very gods adore, nam pulchros dii amant; she is Amoris domina, love's harbinger, love's loadstone, a witch, a charm, &c. Beauty is a dower of itself, a sufficient patrimony, an ample commendation, an accurate epistle, as [4829]Lucian, [4830]Apuleius, Tiraquellus, and some others conclude. Imperio digna forma, beauty deserves a kingdom, saith Abulensis, paradox. 2. cap. 110. immortality; and [4831]"more ...
— The Anatomy of Melancholy • Democritus Junior

... power, In thee greatness perfect sleeps— And thou comest to thy dower, And thy strength perennial keeps. Stir the Aeol harp elate! Make a triumph of its song, For the Soul is ever great, For the Soul ...
— Thoughts, Moods and Ideals: Crimes of Leisure • W.D. Lighthall

... least an ancestral castle, with long galleries filled with the armour borne by our ancestors to the Holy Land, rises in cheery state, waiting to be restored on a scale of unprecedented magnificence by the dower of our affianced brides. And, of course, the passion is suitable to such accessories. 'There is no love but at first sight,'[5] says Disraeli; and, indeed, love at first sight is alone natural to such beings, on whom beauty and talent have been poured out as lavishly as wealth, and who ...
— Hours in a Library - New Edition, with Additions. Vol. II (of 3) • Leslie Stephen

... conditions of the said Cordeilla, desired to haue hir in mariage, and sent ouer to hir father, requiring that he might haue hir to wife: to whome answer was made, that he might haue his daughter, but as for anie dower he could haue none, for all was promised and assured to hir other sisters alreadie. Aganippus notwithstanding this answer of deniall to receiue anie thing by way of dower with Cordeilla, tooke hir to wife, ...
— Chronicles (1 of 6): The Historie of England (2 of 8) - The Second Booke Of The Historie Of England • Raphael Holinshed

... releasing thee from the captivity in which thou languishest, and setting thee in a happy place, and reinstating at once thy honour and my own. Thy intimacy with Spina—albeit, shameful to both—was yet prompted by love. Spina, as thou knowest, is a widow, and her dower is ample and secure. What her breeding is, and her father's and her mother's, thou knowest: of thy present condition I say nought. Wherefore, when thou wilt, I am consenting, that, having been with dishonour thy friend, she become with honour thy wife, and that, so long as ...
— The Decameron, Volume I • Giovanni Boccaccio

... which is thy dower, Earth, though her first-frightened breast Against the exigent boon protest, (For she, poor maid, of her own power Has nothing in herself, not even love, But an unwitting void thereof), Gives back to thee in sanctities of ...
— New Poems • Francis Thompson

... lava deep and rich, That dower which fertilizes fields and fills New moles upon the waters, bay and beach. Broad sea and clustered isles, one terror thrills As roll the red inexorable rills; While Naples trembles in her palaces, More helpless than the leaves when ...
— Poems • Victor Hugo

... moment he had secured his throne, he began a negotiation with France which boded no good. He offered to marry Catharine, the King's third daughter, and therewith to renew the old Treaty of Bretigny, if her dower were Normandy, Maine, Anjou, not without a good sum of money. The French Court, on the other hand, offered him her hand with Aquitaine and the money, an offer rejected instantly; and Henry made ready for a rough wooing in arms. In 1415 he crossed to Harfleur, and while parties ...
— Marguerite de Navarre - Memoirs of Marguerite de Valois Queen of Navarre • Marguerite de Navarre

... that ne'er was given, Save to the pure, and in their purest hour, Life, and Life's effluence, cloud at once and shower, Joy, Lady! is the spirit and the power, Which, wedding Nature to us, gives in dower A new Earth and new Heaven, Undreamt of by the sensual and the proud— Joy is the sweet voice, Joy the luminous cloud— We in ourselves rejoice! And thence flows all that charms or ear or sight, All melodies the echoes of that voice, ...
— English Men of Letters: Coleridge • H. D. Traill

... fears," she said, "about my father giving me leave to marry you. I am sure he regards you already as a son. I only wish that I had a dower to bring you." ...
— The Golden Grasshopper - A story of the days of Sir Thomas Gresham • W.H.G. Kingston

... sunset; 't is an hour Dear unto all, but dearest to their eyes, For it had made them what they were: the power Of love had first o'erwhelm'd them from such skies, When happiness had been their only dower, And twilight saw them link'd in passion's ties; Charm'd with each other, all things charm'd that brought The past still welcome as the ...
— Don Juan • Lord Byron

... entertained but that the Pope would grant the necessary dispensation, for the spiritual head of Christendom was apt to look tenderly on the petitions of the powerful princes of this world. A more serious difficulty was the question of the widow's dower. Part only had been paid, and Ferdinand not merely refused to hand over the rest, but demanded the return of his previous instalments. Henry, on the other hand, considered himself entitled to the whole, refused to refund a ...
— Henry VIII. • A. F. Pollard

... and field, and pasture and garden, and from the sleeping waters, the dreamy day culled the beauty and the grace, the perfume and the sweet content, and, floating on to where the bride awaited her coming, dropped them all, a heavenly dower, upon her head; wrapped the bright veil caressingly about her; and so passed on, to lie reclined upon the hills, dreaming in luxurious beauty, until the night should come, and she should float once ...
— Outpost • J.G. Austin

... the blush about to climb; One another fair they front, Transient, yet outshine the time; Even as dewlight off the rose In the mind a jewel sows. Thus opposing grandeurs live Here if Beauty be their dower: Doth she of her spirit give, Fleetingness will spare her flower. This is in the tune we play, Which no spring of strength would quell; In subduing does not slay; Guides the channel, guards the well: Tempered holds the young blood-heat, Yet through ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith

... said Monsieur Alain, continuing, "agreed with the Champignelles family to give a receipt for the legal dower of Mademoiselle Philiberte (this was necessary in those days); but in return, the Champignelles, who were allied to many of the great families, promised to obtain the erection of the little fief of la Chanterie ...
— The Brotherhood of Consolation • Honore de Balzac

... root in Rheims. Our memories and sometimes our imaginations, clubbed together. Each of us furnished his legend. Rheims is one of the most impossible towns in the geography of story. Pagan lords have lived there, one of whom gave as a dower to his daughter the strips of land in Borysthenes called the "race-courses of Achilles." The Duke de Guyenne, in the fabliaux, passes through Rheims on his way to besiege Babylon; Babylon, moreover, which is very ...
— The Memoirs of Victor Hugo • Victor Hugo

... prince. "And you would have me give her a dower for her second marriage, would you, and a quarter's ...
— Manasseh - A Romance of Transylvania • Maurus Jokai

... Were she fairer than Venus, with a kingdom to her dower, I would none of a woman without ...
— The Chaplet of Pearls • Charlotte M. Yonge

... much to do. They set aside a few of their most precious belongings to be stored, like Grandma's grandma's painted dower chest, full of treasures, and Grandpa's tall desk and Rose-Ellen's dearest doll. Next they chose the things they must use during their stay in Jersey. Finally they called in the second-hand man around the corner to buy the things ...
— Across the Fruited Plain • Florence Crannell Means

... men had been unable to meet without quarreling since the match between Laurent and Angele was broken off, on account of a pig which Father La Vigne would not add to her dower. Angele had a blanket, three dishes, six tin plates, and a kneading-trough; at the pig her father drew the line, and for a pig Laurent's father contended. But now all the La Vigne pigs were roasted or scattered, Angele's dower was destroyed, and what had a ruined habitant to ...
— The Chase Of Saint-Castin And Other Stories Of The French In The New World • Mary Hartwell Catherwood

... Nukewis used to gather armfuls of grass for him. When we went back to my wife's village he trotted along in the trail behind us like a dog. Nukewis wished to go back after her father's Medicine bag, and being a woman she did not wish to go to my mother without her dower. There were many handsome skins and baskets in her father's hut which had been given to him when he was Medicine Man. She felt sure Waba-mooin would not have touched them. And as for me, I was young enough to want Waba-mooin to see that I ...
— The Trail Book • Mary Austin et al

... for the consummation of so weighty a matter, who either rashly, of their own accord, or by the instigation of procurers or marriage-brokers, or else forced thereto by their parents who covet a large dower take upon them this yoke to their prejudice; by which some, before the expiration of a year, have been so enfeebled, that all their vital moisture has been exhausted; which had not been restored again without great trouble and the use of medicines. Therefore, ...
— The Works of Aristotle the Famous Philosopher • Anonymous

... however, was softened gradually. The widow got more independence, and more authority over her children and property, over the marriage of her daughters, and at last the right to contract a second marriage after a year of mourning.[1318] In England, in the eleventh century, a widow's dower could not be taken to pay her husband's taxes, although the exchequer showed little pity for anybody else. The reason given is that "it is the price of her virginity."[1319] The later law also ...
— Folkways - A Study of the Sociological Importance of Usages, Manners, Customs, Mores, and Morals • William Graham Sumner

... do not know One of my sex; no woman's face remember, Save, from my glass, mine own; nor have I seen 50 More that I may call men than you, good friend, And my dear father: how features are abroad, I am skilless of; but, by my modesty, The jewel in my dower, I would not wish Any companion in the world but you; 55 Nor can imagination form a shape, Besides yourself, to like of. But I prattle Something too wildly, and my father's precepts ...
— The Tempest - The Works of William Shakespeare [Cambridge Edition] [9 vols.] • William Shakespeare

... the transient dower Of adolescence which departs with youth - But beauty based on knowledge of the truth Of its eternal message and the source Of all its potent force. Her outer being by the inner thought Shall ...
— Poems of Purpose • Ella Wheeler Wilcox

... who holds all womankind in such esteem that the oldest, and the meanest, and the worst-favoured of them is good enough for him. So, my good Lieutenant, if thou wouldst serve a poor soldier who has but an hour to live, find me the first that comes— my confessor shall marry us, and her dower shall be my dishonoured name and a hundred crowns to boot. No such poor dower for ...
— The Complete Plays of Gilbert and Sullivan - The 14 Gilbert And Sullivan Plays • William Schwenk Gilbert and Arthur Sullivan

... home for her elder daughter. 'And, mamma, I should drive you and papa mad if I were to stay at home always. And what would become of me when Dolly was master of everything?' Lady Pomona, looking forward as well as she was able to the time at which she should herself have departed, when her dower and dower-house would have reverted to Dolly, acknowledged that Georgiana should provide herself with a home of ...
— The Way We Live Now • Anthony Trollope

... the pleasure-seeking crowds—all that were about him—served only to make more desolate and more oppressive by their contrast his memories of that life, once gracious, and gifted, and content with the dower of its youth, ruined by a woman, and now slaughtered here, for no avail and with no honor, by a lance-thrust in a midnight skirmish, which had been unrecorded even in the few lines of the gazette that chronicled the ...
— Under Two Flags • Ouida [Louise de la Ramee]

... I may say to thee, this pride of hers has drawn my love from her. I had thought my age should have been cherished by her childlike duty. I now am resolved to take a wife, and turn her out to whosoever will take her in. Let her beauty be her wedding dower, for me and ...
— Tales from Shakespeare • Charles and Mary Lamb

... chance flirted with her—en tout bien tout honneur. But the Irish chamberlain attached himself to her, not with any but perfectly avowable intentions, but more seriously than the other youngsters, and with an altogether serious eye to her very comfortable dower. ...
— What I Remember, Volume 2 • Thomas Adolphus Trollope

... that plead for pardon And pine from fright, Because the hard East blows Over their maiden rows, Grow not as thy face grows from pale to bright. Behind the veil, forbidden, Shut up from sight, Love, is there sorrow hidden, Is there delight? Is joy thy dower or grief, White rose of weary leaf, Late rose whose life is brief, whose ...
— Old and New Masters • Robert Lynd

... of desires! By all thy dower of lights and fires; By all the eagle in thee, all the dove: By all thy lives and deaths of love: By thy large draughts of intellectual day; And by thy thirsts of love more large than they: By all thy brim-filled bowls of fierce desire, By this last morning's draught ...
— Hilda Lessways • Arnold Bennett

... Take a man who has fortune: he profits thereby to consult his heart only, and offer his name and revenues to the woman he loves and who has no dower. I clap my hands, I think it the best of examples, and I regret that it is so seldom practised among us. In France princes never are seen marrying shepherdesses; on the contrary, one too often sees penniless sons-in-law carrying off heiresses, and that ...
— Samuel Brohl & Company • Victor Cherbuliez

... on whom dark Destiny The dangerous gift of beauty did bestow, From whence thou hast that ample dower of wo, Which on thy front thou bear'st so visibly. Would thou hadst beauty less or strength more high, That more of fear, and less of love might show, He who now blasts him in thy beauty's glow, Or woos thee with a zeal that makes thee die; ...
— Wild Wales - Its People, Language and Scenery • George Borrow

... the chests in the gallery, sweetheart," said her father, who heard only this last sentence, as his daughter ran past him towards the door. "When I was in Italy I was told of a bride who hid herself in an old dower-chest, on her wedding-day—and the lid clapped to with a spring and kept her there ...
— London Pride - Or When the World Was Younger • M. E. Braddon

... are the same at heart. Happy he who weds a handsome face and a large dower. What ...
— The Last Days of Pompeii • Edward George Bulwer-Lytton

... been evoked by the neat appearance of the children of the Moorfields Schools, who had just passed near where we stood, as they entered the church. One of us remarked in reference to the Tower close by, that it was the dower of the Lady Blanche, the daughter of John O'Gaunt, who, although occupying so eminently marked a place in history, was a man so narrow-minded that he would not allow any of his vassals to receive the least education as he held that it ...
— Recollections of Old Liverpool • A Nonagenarian

... II., and these walls have probably echoed to the lays of minstrels, whose harps were tuned in praise of the beautiful and haughty heiress of Aquitaine. The fair wife of Coeur de Lion had this castle for her dower, and, for some time, is said to have lived here. Philip Augustus accorded some singular privileges to Falaise, two of which deserve to ...
— Barn and the Pyrenees - A Legendary Tour to the Country of Henri Quatre • Louisa Stuart Costello

... and the wilderness that would then replace their rich and happy isle. The eloquence of some, and the threats of others, were equally successful. All the savings of years were brought to the chiefs; silver rings and chains—the dower and fortune of many a young maiden—were added to the newly spun shama of the matron: all were reduced to poverty, and were trembling; though they smiled whilst making the sacrifice of all their worldly goods. How they must have cursed, in the bitterness of their ...
— A Narrative of Captivity in Abyssinia - With Some Account of the Late Emperor Theodore, - His Country and People • Henry Blanc

... or friend to the priest for marriage; one of the many points by which the Church distinguished second marriages. A piece of silver and a piece of gold were also laid with the wedding ring upon the priest's book (where the cross would be on the cover), in token of dower to the wife. ...
— Routledge's Manual of Etiquette • George Routledge

... and you, fair mistress, were born in the same hour, As if God himself had marked me from my birth to be your dower. ...
— The Continental Monthly, Vol 3 No 3, March 1863 - Devoted To Literature And National Policy • Various

... kindred of the whole and half blood; saving in all cases to the widow of the intestate, her third part of the real estate for life, and one-third part of the personal estate; and this law relative to descents and dower, shall remain in full force until altered by the legislature of the district. And until the governor and judges shall adopt laws as hereinafter mentioned, estates in the said territory may be devised or bequeathed by wills in writing, signed and sealed by him or her in whom ...
— The Fathers of the Constitution - Volume 13 in The Chronicles Of America Series • Max Farrand

... Wisdom, and her dower Is love and justice, clothed in which he sate Apart from men, as in a ...
— The Complete Poetical Works of Percy Bysshe Shelley Volume I • Percy Bysshe Shelley

... unquestioned—no privilege of a corresponding nature has been reserved for the wife. She hangs on, however unwilling, neglected, or superseded, the perpetual slave of her lord, if such be his will. When actually divorced she can, indeed, claim her dower—her hire, as it is called in the too plain language of the Koran; but the knowledge that the wife can make this claim is at the best a miserable security against capricious taste; and in the case of bondmaids even that imperfect ...
— Two Old Faiths - Essays on the Religions of the Hindus and the Mohammedans • J. Murray Mitchell and William Muir

... sweet revenge! Thou art my only hope, my only dower, And I will make thee worthy of a Queen. Proud noble, I will weave thee such a web,— I will so spoil and trample on thy pride, That thou shalt wish the woman's distaff were Ten thousand lances rather than itself. Ha! waiting still, sir Priest! ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction - Volume 19. Issue 539 - 24 Mar 1832 • Various

... the Buccaneer's humour, and yet seeking to calm it away. "Know ye not that every rose has its own thorns, and every bosom its own stings? Besides," he continued, faintly, "the wealth you speak of will richly dower Barbara; make her a match for a gentleman, or ...
— The Buccaneer - A Tale • Mrs. S. C. Hall

... they now, O tower! The locusts and wild honey? Where is the sacred dower That the Bride of Christ was given? Gone to the wielders of power, The misers and minters of money; Gone for the greed that is their creed— And these in the land have thriven. What then wert thou, and what art now, ...
— The Old Franciscan Missions Of California • George Wharton James

... Wife Sarah a good Sute of mourning apparrel Such as she may Choose—also if she acquit my estate of Dower and third-therin (as we have agreed) Then that my Executer return all of Household movables she bought at our marriage & since that are remaining, also to Pay to her or Her Heirs That Note of Forty Pound I gave to ...
— Junior Classics, V6 • Various

... their abode in the house of Custennin the herdsman. The next day with the dawn, they arrayed themselves in haste, and proceeded to the castle, and entered the hall, and they said, "Yspaddaden Penkawr, give us thy daughter in consideration of her dower and her maiden fee, which we will pay to thee and to her two kinswomen likewise. And unless thou wilt do so, thou shall meet with thy death on her account." Then he said, "Her four great-grandmothers, and her four great-grandsires are yet alive, it is needful that I take ...
— The Mabinogion Vol. 2 (of 3) • Owen M. Edwards

... there she met the Governor, Don Francisco de Guzman. He loved her, he wooed and won her, and at last he married her, but secretly. She was poor and humble by comparison with him; she had only her beauty and her virtue for her dower, and there were reasons why it were better the marriage should be concealed ...
— Sir Henry Morgan, Buccaneer - A Romance of the Spanish Main • Cyrus Townsend Brady



Words linked to "Dower" :   estate for life, gift, give, present, benefice, life estate



Copyright © 2024 Dictionary One.com