widow

[ wid-oh ]

noun

1. a woman who has lost her spouse by death and has not remarried.
2. Cards. an additional hand or part of a hand, as one dealt to the table.
3. Printing.
   1. a short last line of a paragraph, especially one less than half of the full measure or one consisting of only a single word.
   2. the last line of a paragraph when it is carried over to the top of the following page away from the rest of the paragraph. Compare orphan ( def 4 ).
4. a woman often left alone because her husband devotes his free time to a hobby or sport (used in combination). Compare golf widow.

verb (used with object)

, wid·owed, wid·ow·ing.

1. to make (someone) a widow:

   She was widowed by the war.

2. to deprive of anything cherished or needed:

   A surprise attack widowed the army of its supplies.

3. Obsolete.
   1. to endow with a widow's right.
   2. to survive as the widow of.

widow

/ ˈwɪdəʊ /

noun

1. a woman who has survived her husband, esp one who has not remarried
2. informal.
   usually with a modifier a woman whose husband frequently leaves her alone while he indulges in a sport, etc

   a golf widow

3. See orphan
   printing a short line at the end of a paragraph, esp one that occurs as the top line of a page or column Compare orphan
4. (in some card games) an additional hand or set of cards exposed on the table

verb

1. to cause to become a widow or a widower
2. to deprive of something valued or desirable

Derived Forms

• ˈwidowhood, noun

Other Words From

• wid·ow·ly adjective

Word History and Origins

Origin of widow¹

First recorded before 900; (noun) Middle English wid(e)we, Old English widuwe, wydewe; cognate with German Witwe, Gothic widuwo, Latin vidua (feminine of viduus “bereaved”), Sanskrit vidhavā “widow”; (verb) Middle English, derivative of the noun

Word History and Origins

Origin of widow¹

Old English widuwe; related to German Witwe, Latin vidua (feminine of viduus deprived), Sanskrit vidhavā

Idioms and Phrases

see grass widow .

Example Sentences

Since becoming a widow, Mahira has been living alone with her children in a small village in Mewat, Haryana.

From No Straight News

Mel Kahn, a Florida widower, asked for the property tax exemption that state law allowed only to widows.

From No Straight News

Ginsburg represented widower Stephen Wiesenfeld in challenging a Social Security Act provision that provided parental benefits only to widows with minor children.

From No Straight News

Thanks to a new, substantially funded initiative led by his widow, Denise Bradley-Tyson, and the American Heart Association, Bernard Tyson’s work and message have been given an afterlife.

From Fortune

Benedict’s husband would die of a heart attack—which also allowed her, as a widow, to move toward a tenured professorship at Columbia, something denied to married women at the time.

From Nautilus

That was accomplished by cops such as the one whose picture was clutched so tightly by his widow on Sunday.

From The Daily Beast

How many will be there for the young widow of Wenjian Liu, married only two months?

From The Daily Beast

Liu had been married just two months before and his wife now stood in this Brooklyn hospital, a sudden widow because of a madman.

From The Daily Beast

Marjorie Wilkes Huntley was a New Age feminist, a widow, and a librarian.

From The Daily Beast

Around Passover 2011, Dalia, who is now 40, had just lost her husband and was suddenly a single widow with four songs.

From The Daily Beast

Do not the widow's tears run down the cheek, and her cry against him that causeth them to fall?

From Project Gutenberg

Sometimes it was a young girl, again a widow; but as often as not it was some interesting married woman.

From Project Gutenberg

Joan Boughton, a widow, was burned for heresy; said to be the first female martyr of England.

From Project Gutenberg

Learn to do well: seek judgment, relieve the oppressed, judge for the fatherless, defend the widow.

From Project Gutenberg

The cow happily recovered, which the widow entirely attributed to the efficacy of her pastor's prayer.

From Project Gutenberg