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

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

From MarketWatch ● Jun. 30, 2026

A widower, he does worry at times about what he is putting his daughters through.

From The Wall Street Journal ● Mar. 29, 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

Andreas Kronthaler, Westwood's widower and long-term design partner, has been the legendary British label's creative director since 2016.

From BBC ● Mar. 10, 2026

Billy has gone to sleep a senile widower and awakened on his wedding day.

From "Slaughterhouse-Five" by Kurt Vonnegut

Thousands of widows and widowers have been short-changed of their Social Security payments as a result of blunders by the Social Security Administration, a government watchdog has revealed.

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

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

From BBC ● Dec. 20, 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