widow
pronunciation
How to pronounce widow in British English:
UK [ˈwɪdəʊ]
How to pronounce widow in American English:
US [ˈwɪdoʊ]
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- Noun:
- a woman whose husband is dead especially one who has not remarried
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- Verb:
- cause to be without a spouse
Word Origin
- widow
- widow: [OE] A widow is etymologically a woman who has been ‘separated’, left ‘solitary’. The word goes back ultimately to Indo- European *widhewo, an adjective formed from the base *weidh- ‘separate’ (source also of English divide and Sanskrit vidhu- ‘solitary’). This produced a large number of words for ‘widow’ in the Indo-European languages, including Latin vidua (source of French veuve, Italian vedova, and Spanish viuda), Russian and Czech vdova, and Welsh gweddr. To the Germanic languages it has given German witwe and Dutch weduwe as well as English widow. Widower was coined in the 14th century.=> divide, individual
- widow (n.)
- Old English widewe, wuduwe, from Proto-Germanic *widuwo (cognates: Old Saxon widowa, Old Frisian widwe, Middle Dutch, Dutch weduwe, Dutch weeuw, Old High German wituwa, German Witwe, Gothic widuwo), from PIE adjective *widhewo (cognates: Sanskrit vidhuh "lonely, solitary," vidhava "widow;" Avestan vithava, Latin vidua, Old Church Slavonic vidova, Russian vdova, Old Irish fedb, Welsh guedeu "widow;" Persian beva, Greek eitheos "unmarried man;" Latin viduus "bereft, void"), from root *weidh- "to separate" (source of second element in Latin di-videre "to divide;" see with). Extended to "woman separated from or deserted by her husband" from mid-15c. (usually in a combination, such as grass widow). As a prefix to a name, attested from 1570s. Meaning "short line of type" (especially at the top of a column) is 1904 print shop slang. Widow's mite is from Mark xii:43. Widow's peak is from the belief that hair growing to a point on the forehead is an omen of early widowhood, suggestive of the "peak" of a widow's hood. The widow bird (1747) so-called in reference to the long black tail feathers of the males, suggestive of widows' veils.
- widow (v.)
- early 14c.; see widow (n.). Related: Widowed; widowing.
Antonym
Example
- 1. The doctor put his arm around the widow 's shoulders .
- 2. Black widow spiders build tangled-looking webs to snare their prey .
- 3. Litvinenko 's widow was in the audience .
- 4. The noble false widow spider is the uk 's most venomous .
- 5. Old mrs robinson was a widow who lived alone in a small house .