dower vs sacrifice

dower

verb
  • To give a dower or dowry to. 

  • To endow. 

noun
  • The part of or interest in a deceased husband's property provided to his widow, usually in the form of a life estate. 

  • Property given by a groom directly to his bride at or before their wedding in order to legitimize the marriage; dowry. 

sacrifice

verb
  • To offer (something) as a gift to a deity. 

  • To advance (a runner on base) by batting the ball so it can be fielded, placing the batter out, but with insufficient time to put the runner out. 

  • To give away (something valuable) to get at least a possibility of gaining something else of value (such as self-respect, trust, love, freedom, prosperity), or to avoid an even greater loss. 

  • To intentionally give up (a piece) in order to improve one’s position on the board. 

  • To destroy; to kill. 

  • To trade (a value of higher worth) for something of lesser worth in order to gain something else valued more, such as an ally or business relationship, or to avoid an even greater loss; to sell without profit to gain something other than money. 

  • To kill a test animal for autopsy. 

noun
  • A loss of profit. 

  • The offering of anything to a god; a consecratory rite. 

  • Something sacrificed. 

  • The destruction or surrender of anything for the sake of something else; the devotion of something desirable to something higher, or to a calling deemed more pressing. 

  • A play in which the batter is intentionally out so that one or more runners can advance around the bases. 

How often have the words dower and sacrifice occurred in a corpus of books? (source: Google Ngram Viewer )