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.

---

widower British  

/ ˈwɪdəʊə /

noun

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

---

Other Word Forms

Derived Forms

• widowerhood
  noun
• widowered
  adjective

Inflected Forms

Nouns

• widowers
  plural

---

Etymology

Origin of widower

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

---

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

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

But rather than remain a widow or widower, they remarry.

From MarketWatch ● Jun. 30, 2026

In November, a Chicago jury awarded a widower of one of the MAX victims $28.45 million.

From Barron's ● May 13, 2026

He’s also a widower who lost his wife not to some boring disease but in a way that only a real spitfire would go, by flipping her ATV.

From Salon ● Mar. 23, 2026

The first had been a widower with four children.

From "The Namesake" by Jhumpa Lahiri

The scandal is especially egregious because widows and widowers are disproportionately among the poorest elders.

From MarketWatch ● May 1, 2026

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

They include 2.5 million pensioners - including widows and widowers - whose state pension operates under the pre-2016 system.

From BBC ● Nov. 28, 2025

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

From Salon ● Apr. 2, 2024

Some are widows or widowers, others are people with relatives or children who have gone missing.

From "The Wrong Way Home" by Kate O’Shaughnessy

Random Word

Spin the wheel and learn a new word!

---