Dour or dower?
dour is an adjective meaning “Stern, harsh and forbidding”; dower is a noun meaning “Property given by a groom to his bride or her family, at or before their…”. Use dour as an adjective and dower as a noun (dour is also a noun: “Alternative form of daur”). In written English (wordfreq, 2021 data) dour is about as common as dower.
What is the difference between dour and dower?
| dour | dower | |
|---|---|---|
| Part of speech | adjective, noun | noun, verb |
| Meaning | Stern, harsh and forbidding Unyielding and obstinate | The part of or interest in a deceased husband's property provided to his widow, usually in the form of a life estate Property given by a groom to his bride or her family, at or before their wedding, in order to legitimize the marriage To give a dower or dowry to |
| Example | none recorded | none recorded |
| Forms | dourer, dourest | dowers |
| Pronunciation | /ˈdʊə/ /ˈdaʊə/ /ˈdʊɹ/ | /ˈdaʊ.əɹ/ [ˈdaʊ.ə(ɹ)] [ˈdaw.ɚ] |
| In writing | about once in every 3 million words | about once in every 4 million words |
Sources: dour and dower in the English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0); written frequency: wordfreq 3.1 (a 2021 snapshot of Wikipedia, subtitles, news, books, web text and social media).
Every current meaning of dour and dower
dour
- 1
Stern, harsh and forbidding
- 2
Alternative form of daur
- 3
Unyielding and obstinate
- 4
Expressing gloom or melancholy
dower
- 1
The part of or interest in a deceased husband's property provided to his widow, usually in the form of a life estate
- 2
To give a dower or dowry to
- 3
Alternative spelling of dougher
- 4
Property given by a groom to his bride or her family, at or before their wedding, in order to legitimize the marriage
- 5
To endow
Source: the English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0); obsolete, archaic, dialect and rare senses left out.
Which is more common, dour or dower?
dour appears about once in every 3 million words; dower about once in every 4 million words.
dour about once in every 3 million wordsdower about once in every 4 million words
Source: written frequency: wordfreq 3.1 (a 2021 snapshot of Wikipedia, subtitles, news, books, web text and social media).
How many people search dour vs dower?
“dour vs dower” is searched about 10 times a month on Google and 10 on Bing in the United States. Google counts close variants of a query together (“dower vs dour”, “dour or dower”).
Sources: Google Ads keyword data through DataForSEO and Microsoft Advertising keyword data through DataForSEO, the average month from September 2025 to August 2026.