dowerless

Lacking a dowry; dowryless.

Adjective

  1. Lacking a dowry; dowryless.
    • A carol (Greene no. 315) which relates how St. Nicholas helped three dowerless girls employs, in stanzas 4-6, a type of incremental repetition in which each daughter speaks in turn […] - 1980, Mary Diane McCabe,...

    Synonyms: dowryless

Origin

Etymology tree English dower Proto-Indo-European *lewh₁- Proto-Indo-European *lewHs-der. Proto-Germanic *leusaną Proto-Germanic *lausaz Proto-Germanic *-lausaz Proto-West Germanic *-laus Old English -lēas Middle English -les English -less English dowerless From dower + -less.

Derived

dowerlessness