endow
/ɪnˈdaʊ/
"endow" is a 5-letter English headword indexed on PlainSpell.
The verdict
“endow” is an uncommon English word, ranked #57,372 in English word frequency and used as a verb.
- #57,372
- frequency rank, English
- 5
- letters
According to Wiktionary data (CC BY-SA, analyzed May 6, 2026) - To give property to (someone) as a gift; specifically, to provide (a person or institution) with support in the form of a permanent fund of money or other benefits.
| Property | Value |
|---|---|
| Headword | endow |
| Language | English |
| Part of speech | Verb |
| IPA | /ɪnˈdaʊ/ |
| Letters | 5 |
| Frequency rank | #57,372 |
| Misspellings tracked | 0 |
| Confusable pairs | 0 |
| Source | Wiktionary (kaikki.org) |
Where “endow” sits in English frequency
Spelling & Dictionary Insight
The English entry for endow is 5 letters long, classified as a verb, and transcribed in the International Phonetic Alphabet as /ɪnˈdaʊ/. Corpus data places it at rank #57,372 in overall English word frequency, marking it as uncommon enough that many writers pause before typing it. Wiktionary records 4 distinct senses for this headword, so context determines which meaning a reader should apply.
The misspelling generator found no plausible variants for endow, a straightforward case of a spelling with little room for common typos. This entry stands alone in our confusable dataset, since nothing in our dataset looks or sounds close enough to cause mix-ups.
Etymologically, the entry records: From Late Middle English endowen, endouen, enduen, indouen, indw (“to provide with assets, a livelihood, or privileges; to bestow, grant; (figuratively) to favour; to endow”), from Anglo-Norman endouer, from Old French en- (prefix meaning ‘in, into’) + doue… The correct English form is endow, spelled E-N-D-O-W.
Definition
- 1To give property to (someone) as a gift; specifically, to provide (a person or institution) with support in the form of a permanent fund of money or other benefits.
- 2To enrich or furnish with some faculty or quality.
- 3To naturally furnish (with something).
- 4To provide with a dower (“the portion that a widow receives from her deceased husband's property”) or a dowry (“property given to a bride”).
Etymology
From Late Middle English endowen, endouen, enduen, indouen, indw (“to provide with assets, a livelihood, or privileges; to bestow, grant; (figuratively) to favour; to endow”), from Anglo-Norman endouer, from Old French en- (prefix meaning ‘in, into’) + douer (“to endow”) (from Latin dōtāre (present active infinitive of dōtō (“to endow”)); modern French douer). Dōtō is derived from dōs (“dowry; endowment, gift”) (ultimately from Proto-Indo-European *deh₃- (“to give”)) + -ō (suffix forming regular first-conjugation verbs).
This word in other languages
Definitions, pronunciation, and etymology for this entry are drawn from Wiktionary via the kaikki.org structured extract (CC BY-SA); frequency ordering uses the FrequencyWords open word-frequency list (2018 English corpus, MIT). See the methodology for how each field is sourced and updated.
Frequently Asked Questions
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Using “endow”
The practical upshot for anyone who landed here from a spell-check.
- The one correct English spelling is E-N-D-O-W - every other letter order is a misspelling in standard orthography.
- Say it as /ɪnˈdaʊ/ (IPA); tap the speaker on the pronunciation badge to hear it where audio exists.
- Browse more English words and confusable pairs in the same reference. English words
Data Source
Wiktionary (via kaikki.org), licensed under CC BY-SA & GFDL. Word ordering uses an open word-frequency list; misspelling variants are generated by edit-distance from the correct headword.