marriage-portion

English

Noun

marriage-portion (plural marriage-portions)

1. A dowry, either paid by the bride's family to the groom or his family, or by the groom's family to the bride or her family, at the time of marriage.
   • 1831, L[etitia] E[lizabeth] L[andon], chapter XVII, in Romance and Reality. […], volume III, London: Henry Colburn and Richard Bentley, […], →OCLC, page 291:

     Minora gained by the visit—a marriage-portion, which made her lover's father as polite to the heiress as he had been cold to the beauty. He had negatived the features which his son had most eloquently pleaded; but he had nothing to say against the pistoles.