ENDOWMENT

The bestowing or assuring of a dower to a woman. It is sometimes used: metaphorically, for the setting a provision for a charitable institution, as the endowment of a hospital. 1. The assignment of dower; the setting off a woman’s dower. 2 Bl. Comm. 135. 2. In appropriations of churches, (in English law,) the setting off a sufficient maintenance for the vicar in perpetuity. 1 Bl. Comm. 387. 3. The act of settling a fund, or permanent pecuniary provision, for the maintenance of a public institution, charity, college, etc. 4. A fund settled upon a public institution, etc., for its maintenance or use. The words “endowment” and “fund,” in a statute exempting from taxation the real estate, the furniture and personal property, and the “endowment or fund” of religious and educational corporations, are ejusdem generis, and intended to comprehend a class of property different from the other two, not real estate or chattels. The difference between the words is that “fund” is a general term, including the endowment, while “endowment” means that particular fund, or part of the fund, of the institution, bestowed for its more permanent uses, and usually kept sacred for the purposes intended. The word “endowment” does not, in such an enactment include real estate.