widow

American  

[wid-oh] / ˈwɪd oʊ /

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.

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

• widowhood noun
• widowly adjective

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

Example Sentences

She said that his widow, Patricia Houston, "with great dignity and courage, describes to the court the devastating impact of the loss of her husband… in her words, her world has collapsed."

From BBC

He left a widow and two young children.

From The Wall Street Journal

The widowed farmer had, after all, witnessed the accidental death of his wife and child.

From The Wall Street Journal

"The money I was anticipating from my cocoa bean sales is currently inaccessible. I'm a widow now and I don't have anyone to support me," said Frimpong.

From BBC

Mr. Ansari—the son of an Iranian ambassador and a distant cousin of Farah Pahlavi, the shah’s widow—was sent off to boarding school in the U.K. in June 1978, “which was fairly good timing.”

From The Wall Street Journal