widow

American  

[wid-oh] / ˈwɪd oʊ /

noun

• widows
  plural

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.

4. a woman often left alone because her husband devotes his free time to a hobby or sport (used in combination).

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verb (used with object)

widowed, widowing

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 British  

/ 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. 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

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verb

1. to cause to become a widow or a widower

2. to deprive of something valued or desirable

widow Idioms  

1. see grass widow.

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Other Word Forms

Derived Forms

• widowhood
  noun
• widowly
  adjective

Inflected Forms

Nouns

• widows
  plural

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Etymology

Origin of widow

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

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Explanation

A widow is a woman whose husband has died. If your uncle dies, your aunt will become a widow. If a person's spouse dies, that person is referred to as either a widow or — in the case of a man whose wife dies — a widower. In most cases, people stop using the word widow if the woman marries again. Back in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, it was common to use widow as a prefix to a woman's name, instead of "Mrs." The Indo-European root word of widow means "be empty."

Example Sentences

See Examples For:

widow widows widowed widowing

Heera Devi, an elderly widow, had raised her children through years of farming, cutting grass and tending to her buffalo.

From BBC ● Nov. 6, 2026

And poet Countee Cullen’s widow Ida Mae makes sure her husband’s name and accomplishments are on everyone’s mind.

From Los Angeles Times ● Oct. 22, 2026

Don’t miss: I’m a 68-year-old widow and give money to my two adult children.

From MarketWatch ● Oct. 20, 2026

Weimar in the early 1920s was a bohemia where a young Marlene Dietrich, studying violin in the city, could meet Alma Mahler, the widow of Gustav and former wife of Gropius.

From The Wall Street Journal ● Oct. 16, 2026

“What kind of person tries to steal from a penniless widow with ten children?”

From "Killers of the Flower Moon" by David Grann

The local parish church offered financial support to injured veterans and widows but, for many in the town, the cost of such a practice seemed too high.

From The Wall Street Journal ● Oct. 27, 2026

The annual event was initiated in 2012 by the then-governor when 100 couples - primarily widows and divorcees - wed at the palace.

From BBC ● Aug. 9, 2026

Ambrositsch, for example, is proud that her heuriger brings together "19-year-old hipsters and 91-year-old widows" at the same table.

From Barron's ● Jul. 26, 2026

In many cases, those women were widows appointed by governors or chosen by voters to take over their deceased husbands’ seats.

From Slate ● Jul. 24, 2026

I would join the other widows for a dinner of curried lentils or rice, sometimes with a bit of fish or some morsels of chicken.

From "Homeless Bird" by Gloria Whelan

I am widowed and have no intention of remarrying.

From MarketWatch ● Oct. 15, 2026

In short, the widowed taxpayer often faces a double whammy: Income often falls while tax rates increase.

From MarketWatch ● Sep. 22, 2026

Cecily Craig, 71, lives a short walk away from her centenarian widowed mother at Park Pointe Village in Rock Hill, S.C., each in their own apartment.

From The Wall Street Journal ● Sep. 5, 2026

Now aged 87, Indumati Thapa's life revolves around a group of similarly widowed women.

From BBC ● Aug. 25, 2026

Antonina Bondareva, the young widowed pilot in the 125th Guards who’d left her toddler with her husband’s family, had to struggle after the war to get her sister-in-law to give back her now seven-year-old daughter.

From "A Thousand Sisters" by Elizabeth Wein

In 2015 she became a symbol of heartbreaking grief when Goldberg died while working out on vacation, widowing her with two children as she continued to help run one of the world’s best-known companies.

From Seattle Times ● Jun. 1, 2022

Compared with other singletons, people who were single as a result of divorce or widowing had a three times and six times greater risk, respectively.

From Time Magazine Archive

He kept continually in his hand a polished, oval, white carnelian, the gift of his widowing love, and at times it seemed his only consolation, the only thing left him in this world clearly tangible.

From The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 11, No. 66, April, 1863 by Various

The days that followed the widowing rites passed strangely for Dorama.

From The Outcaste by F. E. Penny

And now he learnt that not only had she thwarted his schemes against Monmouth, but had deprived him of the ardently sought felicity of widowing her.

From Mistress Wilding by Rafael Sabatini

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