ENDOWMENT

Pronunciation (US):

(GB):

IPA (US):

 Dictionary entry overview: What does endowment mean? 

• ENDOWMENT (noun)
  The noun ENDOWMENT has 3 senses:

1. natural abilities or qualities

2. the capital that provides income for an institution

3. the act of endowing with a permanent source of income

  Familiarity information: ENDOWMENT used as a noun is uncommon.

 Dictionary entry details 

• ENDOWMENT (noun)

Sense 1

Meaning:

Natural abilities or qualities

Classified under:

Nouns denoting cognitive processes and contents

Synonyms:

endowment; gift; natural endowment; talent

Hypernyms ("endowment" is a kind of...):

natural ability (ability that is inherited)

Hyponyms (each of the following is a kind of "endowment"):

bent; hang; knack (a special way of doing something)

flair; genius (a natural talent)

raw talent (powerfully impressive talent)

Derivation:

endow (give qualities or abilities to)

Sense 2

Meaning:

The capital that provides income for an institution

Classified under:

Nouns denoting possession and transfer of possession

Synonyms:

endowment; endowment fund

Hypernyms ("endowment" is a kind of...):

capital (wealth in the form of money or property owned by a person or business and human resources of economic value)

Hyponyms (each of the following is a kind of "endowment"):

patrimony (a church endowment)

chantry (an endowment for the singing of Masses)

Derivation:

endow (furnish with an endowment)

Sense 3

Meaning:

The act of endowing with a permanent source of income

Classified under:

Nouns denoting acts or actions

Context example:

his generous endowment of the laboratory came just in the nick of time

Hypernyms ("endowment" is a kind of...):

gift; giving (the act of giving)

Derivation:

endow (furnish with an endowment)

 Context examples 

It is not personal, but mental endowments they have given you: you are formed for labour, not for love.

(Jane Eyre, by Charlotte Brontë)

She was a simple, practical, hard-working woman, but she possessed faith in large endowment.

(Martin Eden, by Jack London)

Here Catherine secretly acknowledged the power of love; for, though exceedingly fond of her brother, and partial to all his endowments, she had never in her life thought him handsome.

(Northanger Abbey, by Jane Austen)

An institution supported by an endowment.

(Foundation, NCI Thesaurus)

He is an Englishman, and in the midst of national and professional prejudices, unsoftened by cultivation, retains some of the noblest endowments of humanity.

(Frankenstein, by Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley)

A few slight indications of a rather petted and capricious manner, which I observed in the Beauty, were manifestly considered, by Traddles and his wife, as her birthright and natural endowment.

(David Copperfield, by Charles Dickens)

But they thought the want of moral virtues was so far from being supplied by superior endowments of the mind, that employments could never be put into such dangerous hands as those of persons so qualified; and, at least, that the mistakes committed by ignorance, in a virtuous disposition, would never be of such fatal consequence to the public weal, as the practices of a man, whose inclinations led him to be corrupt, and who had great abilities to manage, to multiply, and defend his corruptions.

(Gulliver's Travels into several remote nations of the world, by Jonathan Swift)

Studies focus on external agents such as chemicals, radiation, fibers and other particles, viruses, parasitic infections, and host factors such as hormone levels, nutritional and immunologic status, and the genetic endowment of the individual, all of which contribute to the initiation and promotion of cancer.

(Cancer Causation Research, NCI Thesaurus)

Tom Bertram must have been thought pleasant, indeed, at any rate; he was the sort of young man to be generally liked, his agreeableness was of the kind to be oftener found agreeable than some endowments of a higher stamp, for he had easy manners, excellent spirits, a large acquaintance, and a great deal to say; and the reversion of Mansfield Park, and a baronetcy, did no harm to all this.

(Mansfield Park, by Jane Austen)

His endowments of this spot alone might at any time have placed him high among the benefactors of the convent.

(Northanger Abbey, by Jane Austen)