DOWAGER

Pronunciation (US):

(GB):

IPA (US):

 Dictionary entry overview: What does dowager mean? 

• DOWAGER (noun)
  The noun DOWAGER has 1 sense:

1. a widow holding property received from her deceased husband

  Familiarity information: DOWAGER used as a noun is very rare.

 Dictionary entry details 

• DOWAGER (noun)

Sense 1

Meaning:

A widow holding property received from her deceased husband

Classified under:

Nouns denoting people

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

widow; widow woman (a woman whose husband is dead especially one who has not remarried)

 Context examples 

The young lady thus claimed as the dowager's special property, reiterated her question with an explanation.

(Jane Eyre, by Charlotte Brontë)

She whom I had known as the play actress of Anstey Cross became the dowager Lady Avon; whilst Boy Jim, as dear to me now as when we harried birds’ nests and tickled trout together, is now Lord Avon, beloved by his tenantry, the finest sportsman and the most popular man from the north of the Weald to the Channel.

(Rodney Stone, by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle)

Elizabeth arm in arm with Miss Carteret, and looking on the broad back of the dowager Viscountess Dalrymple before her, had nothing to wish for which did not seem within her reach; and Anne—but it would be an insult to the nature of Anne's felicity, to draw any comparison between it and her sister's; the origin of one all selfish vanity, of the other all generous attachment.

(Persuasion, by Jane Austen)

I suppose Mrs. R.'s Easter holidays will not last much longer; no doubt they are thorough holidays to her. The Aylmers are pleasant people; and her husband away, she can have nothing but enjoyment. I give her credit for promoting his going dutifully down to Bath, to fetch his mother; but how will she and the dowager agree in one house? Henry is not at hand, so I have nothing to say from him. Do not you think Edmund would have been in town again long ago, but for this illness? Yours ever, Mary.

(Mansfield Park, by Jane Austen)

Mrs. Rushworth was quite ready to retire, and make way for the fortunate young woman whom her dear son had selected; and very early in November removed herself, her maid, her footman, and her chariot, with true dowager propriety, to Bath, there to parade over the wonders of Sotherton in her evening parties; enjoying them as thoroughly, perhaps, in the animation of a card-table, as she had ever done on the spot; and before the middle of the same month the ceremony had taken place which gave Sotherton another mistress.

(Mansfield Park, by Jane Austen)

It is not worth complaining about; but to be sure the poor old dowager could not have died at a worse time; and it is impossible to help wishing that the news could have been suppressed for just the three days we wanted.

(Mansfield Park, by Jane Austen)