/ˈwɪd.əʊ/, /ˈwɪd.oʊ/
- A woman whose spouse (traditionally husband) has died (and who has not remarried); a woman in relation to her late spouse; feminine of widower.
- uncommonAny person whose spouse has died (and who has not remarried).
“Now that he is a widow, he tries to win Olivia back through the songs and the music that brought them together all those years ago, leaving Olivia torn between moving forward with Josh or falling into”
- broadly, humorous, in-compounds, informal, oftenA woman whose husband is often away pursuing a hobby, career, etc.
“My aunt is a football widow in the fall and a basketball widow in the winter and early spring.”
“I had been feeling like a bowling-alley widow, but knew he loved the game, so I suggested we join a mixed league.”
“And how many betting widows do I see at the hospital, who hardly see their husbands while the betting shops are open!”
- An additional hand of playing cards dealt face-down in some card games, to be used by the highest bidder.
- A single line of type that ends a paragraph but is separated from it by being carried over to the next page or column.
- Any venomous spider of the genus Latrodectus (called "widows" because of the practice of sexual cannibalism observed among many of these species).
- transitiveTo make a widow or widower of someone; to cause the death of the spouse of.
- figuratively, transitiveTo strip of anything valued.
“Sleep, gentle winds, as he sleeps now,
My friend, the brother of my love.
My Arthur! whom I shall not see
Till all my widow’d race be run;
Dear as the mother to the son,
More than my brothers are to”
- obsolete, transitiveTo endow with a widow's right.
- obsolete, transitiveTo be widow to.
Formswidows(plural) · widows(present, singular, third-person) · widowing(participle, present) · widowed(participle, past) · widowed(past)