marriage-portion

English

Noun

marriage-portion (plural marriage-portions)

  1. A dowry, either paid by the bride's family to the groom or his family, or by the groom's family to the bride or her family, at the time of marriage.
    Hypernyms: price, fee, gift
    Hyponyms: dowry (in its usual sense), dowry (in its less common sense), reverse dowry, dower (upon-marriage sense), bride price, bride gift, bride-gift, bridegift, bride wealth, bride-wealth, bridewealth, bride token; mahr (Islamic dower), lobola (Bantu dower)
    Coordinate term: dower (upon-death sense: likewise an assurance, but receivable at death rather than upon marriage)
    • 1831, L[etitia] E[lizabeth] L[andon], chapter XVII, in Romance and Reality. […], volume III, London: Henry Colburn and Richard Bentley, […], →OCLC, page 291:
      Minora gained by the visit—a marriage-portion, which made her lover's father as polite to the heiress as he had been cold to the beauty. He had negatived the features which his son had most eloquently pleaded; but he had nothing to say against the pistoles.
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