widower

American  

[wid-oh-er] / ˈwɪd oʊ ər /

noun

• widowers
  plural

1. a man who has lost his spouse by death and has not remarried.

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widower British  

/ ˈwɪdəʊə /

noun

1. a man whose wife has died and who has not remarried

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Other Word Forms

Derived Forms

• widowerhood
  noun
• widowered
  adjective

Inflected Forms

Nouns

• widowers
  plural

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Etymology

Origin of widower

1325–75; late Middle English ( see widow, -er ¹); replacing widow (now dial.), Old English wydewa

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Explanation

If your grandmother has died, you can call your grandfather a widower, or a man whose wife is no longer living. When a man loses his wife, he becomes a widower. The equivalent name for a woman whose husband dies is a widow. In many cases, a man is only referred to as a widower if he has not remarried. Both a widow and a widower are described as being widowed. The feminine form of this word came first, from the Old English widewe. The Indo-European root means "be empty," which perfectly describes the grief that many recent widowers feel.

Example Sentences

See Examples For:

widower widowers

Next steps: It may feel morbid to plan for life as a widow or widower, but smart advance tax-planning strategies mean facing the “what-ifs.”

From MarketWatch ● Sep. 22, 2026

Ronnie is a widower hoping to win enough money to pay off his lawyer, hire a private investigator and find his daughter, who left in anger after her mother died.

From The Wall Street Journal ● Sep. 9, 2026

Last November, another jury awarded the widower of one of the MAX victims $28.45 million.

From Barron's ● May 23, 2026

The movie — which he wrote, directed and stars in — follows a widower as he scatters his wife’s ashes in very specific locations and deals with the memories that arise at each of them.

From Los Angeles Times ● Mar. 3, 2026

As an older widower, he was an appropriate match.

From "American Spirits" by Barb Rosenstock

A lot of those old trusts, notably A/B trusts, have rigid language limiting how widows and widowers can control family money after their spouse died.

From Barron's ● Feb. 28, 2026

Widows and widowers talk about the pain of the "firsts" without their late partner - anniversaries, birthdays, major life events.

From BBC ● Dec. 20, 2025

So, we are two widowers living in a large home.

From MarketWatch ● Nov. 28, 2025

Widows and widowers miss spouses who died during the height of the pandemic.

From Salon ● Apr. 2, 2024

“Mama’s takin’ it all right, I s’pose,” I said, as if widowers getting hitched right after the funeral was an everyday thing.

From "Cold Sassy Tree" by Olive Ann Burns

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