Definitions

from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 5th Edition.

  • noun A woman whose spouse has died and who has not remarried.
  • noun Informal A woman whose spouse is often away pursuing a sport or hobby.
  • noun An additional hand of cards dealt face down in some card games, to be used by the highest bidder.
  • noun A single, usually short line of type, as one ending a paragraph, carried over to the top of the next page or column.
  • noun A short line of type at the bottom of a page, column, or paragraph.
  • transitive verb To make a widow or widower of.

from The Century Dictionary.

  • noun A whidah-bird.
  • noun A woman who has lost her husband by death, In the early church, widows formed a separate class or order, whose duties were devotion and the care of the orphans, the sick, and prisoners.
  • noun A European geometrid moth, Cidaria luctuata, more fully called mourning widow: an English collectors' name.
  • noun In some cardgames, an additional hand dealt to the table, sometimes face up, sometimes not.
  • To reduce to the condition of a widow; bereave of a husband or mate: commonly in the past participle.
  • To endow with a widow's right.
  • Figuratively, to deprive of anything regarded as analogous to a husband; bereave: sometimes with of.
  • To survive as the widow of; be widow to.

from the GNU version of the Collaborative International Dictionary of English.

  • adjective Widowed.
  • transitive verb To reduce to the condition of a widow; to bereave of a husband; -- rarely used except in the past participle.
  • transitive verb To deprive of one who is loved; to strip of anything beloved or highly esteemed; to make desolate or bare; to bereave.
  • transitive verb rare To endow with a widow's right.
  • transitive verb obsolete To become, or survive as, the widow of.
  • noun A woman who has lost her husband by death, and has not married again; one living bereaved of a husband.
  • noun (Card Playing) In various games (such as “hearts”), any extra hand or part of a hand, as one dealt to the table. It may be taken by one of the players under certain circumstances.
  • noun See under Grass.
  • noun [Colloq.] a woman separated from her husband; a grass widow.
  • noun (Zoöl.) the macavahu.
  • noun (Zoöl.) a small South American monkey (Callithrix lugens); -- so called on account of its color, which is black except the dull whitish arms, neck, and face, and a ring of pure white around the face.
  • noun (Eng. Law) in London, the apparel and furniture of the bedchamber of the widow of a freeman, to which she was formerly entitled.

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License.

  • noun A woman whose husband has died (and has not re-married); feminine of widower.
  • noun informal, in combination A woman whose husband is often away pursuing a sport, etc.
  • noun An additional hand of cards dealt face down in some card games, to be used by the highest bidder.
  • noun printing A single line of type that ends a paragraph, carried over to the next page or column.
  • noun type of venomous spider, of the genus Latrodectus
  • verb transitive To make a widow (or widower) of someone; to cause the death of one's spouse.

from WordNet 3.0 Copyright 2006 by Princeton University. All rights reserved.

  • noun a woman whose husband is dead especially one who has not remarried
  • verb cause to be without a spouse

Etymologies

from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 4th Edition

[Middle English widewe, from Old English widuwe.]

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License

From Old English widewe ("widow"), from Proto-Germanic *widuwōn, from Proto-Indo-European *h₁widʰéwh₂. Cognate with Latin vidua, French veuve.

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Examples

Comments

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  • also

    In typesetting, a widow is the last line of a paragraph printed by itself at the top of a page.

    cf orphan

    July 18, 2008

  • In typography, a widow is "A very short line that appears at the end of a paragraph, column, or page, or at the top of a column or page.These awkward typographic configurations should be corrected editorially." (http://www.typographicdesign4e.com/resources_glossary.html#anchor-w)

    February 26, 2009