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View synonyms for widow
widow
[ wid-oh ]
noun
- a woman who has lost her spouse by death and has not remarried.
- Cards. an additional hand or part of a hand, as one dealt to the table.
- Printing.
- a short last line of a paragraph, especially one less than half of the full measure or one consisting of only a single word.
- 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 ).
- 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.
- to make (someone) a widow:
She was widowed by the war.
- to deprive of anything cherished or needed:
A surprise attack widowed the army of its supplies.
- Obsolete.
- to endow with a widow's right.
- to survive as the widow of.
widow
/ ˈwɪdəʊ /
noun
- a woman who has survived her husband, esp one who has not remarried
- informal.usually with a modifier a woman whose husband frequently leaves her alone while he indulges in a sport, etc
a golf widow
- 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
- (in some card games) an additional hand or set of cards exposed on the table
verb
- to cause to become a widow or a widower
- to deprive of something valued or desirable
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Derived Forms
- ˈwidowhood, noun
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Other Words From
- wid·ow·ly adjective
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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
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Word History and Origins
Origin of widow1
Old English widuwe; related to German Witwe, Latin vidua (feminine of viduus deprived), Sanskrit vidhavā
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Idioms and Phrases
see grass widow .Advertisement
Definitions and idiom definitions from Dictionary.com Unabridged, based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2023
Idioms from The American Heritage® Idioms Dictionary copyright © 2002, 2001, 1995 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company.
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