Capable of receiving or entitled to a dower; (of a widow) able to claim a legal share of a husband's estate.
From dower (a widow's share of her husband's property, from Old French) plus -able. Used in historical legal contexts.
'Dowable' is a legal relic from when women had very few property rights—a woman's access to her 'dower' was literally one of her only financial protections after marriage!
Related to dower (a woman's inheritance on marriage); historically tied to women's legal and economic dependency on husbands, limiting their autonomous property rights.
Use in historical contexts only; when discussing modern property rights, specify gender-neutral inheritance or estate planning.
["heritable","transferable property"]
Complete word intelligence in one call. Free tier — 50 lookups/day.