ENGLISH
REFERENCE

widow

n. · v.
US //ˈwɪdoʊ// UK //wˈɪdəʊ// wid·ow
  1. 1 woman whose husband died (n.)
    B1 Intermediate

    a woman whose husband has died and who has not married again.

    a woman who has lost her spouse by death and has not remarried.

    Example

    The elderly widow lived alone in the house where she and her husband had spent forty years.

    Example

    After becoming a widow in her early thirties, she devoted her energy to managing the family estate and ensuring her children's education.

  2. 2 partner of someone often away (n.)
    C1 Advanced Humorous Informal

    you use this to describe someone whose partner is always busy with a hobby or job.

    a person whose spouse is frequently absent due to a specific occupation or hobby, often used in compounds like 'golf widow'.

    Example

    During the football season, she joked that she was a 'football widow' because her husband was always at the stadium.

    Example

    He described himself as a 'work widow' during the months his partner was traveling across the country for the political campaign.

    Usage

    Usually appears as the second part of a compound noun.

    Teacher's tip

    This is often used sarcastically to complain about a partner's time-consuming interests.

  3. 3 typography (n.)
    C2 Proficiency Technical

    a single word or short line of text that appears alone at the top of a new page.

    a single line of type that ends a paragraph but is separated from the rest of the text by a page or column break.

    Example

    The editor asked me to fix the widow at the top of page five to make the layout look better.

    Example

    Professional typesetters adjust character spacing and line breaks to eliminate widows and orphans, ensuring a clean visual flow across the spread.

    Usage

    Often discussed alongside 'orphans' in design contexts.

  4. 4 venomous spider (n.)
    B2 Upper Intermediate Science

    a type of poisonous spider, often called a 'black widow'.

    any venomous spider of the genus Latrodectus, known for the female's tendency to eat the male after mating.

    Example

    Be careful when cleaning the garage, as a black widow might be hiding in the dark corners.

    Example

    The researcher studied the neurotoxic venom of the Australian redback, a member of the widow family of spiders.

  5. 5 to make someone a widow (v.)
    C1 Advanced Literary

    to cause someone's husband or wife to die.

    to cause the death of someone's spouse, thereby making them a widow or widower.

    Example

    The war widowed many young women in the village.

    Example

    The mining disaster widowed dozens of women in the small community, leaving them to raise their families without a primary breadwinner.

    Usage

    Almost always used in the passive voice or as a past participle.

Origin

Etymology tree Proto-Indo-European *dwóh₁ Proto-Indo-European *dwi- Proto-Indo-European *dʰeh₁- Proto-Indo-European *h₁weydʰh₁- Proto-Indo-European *h₁widʰéwh₂ Proto-Germanic *widuwǭ Proto-West Germanic *widuwā Old English widuwe Middle English widwe English widow PIE word *dwóh₁ From Middle English widow, from Old English widuwe (“widow”), from Proto-West Germanic widuwā (“widow”), from Proto-Germanic widuwǭ (“widow”), from Proto-Indo-European h₁widʰéwh₂ (“widow”), possibly from h₁weydʰh₁-, *widʰ- (“to separate, split, cleave, divide”), whence also wood from Old English widu, wudu. Cognates Cognate with Scots weedae, wedow, widdow (“widow”), Cimbrian bittaba (“widow”), Dutch weduwe, weeuw (“widow”), German Witwe (“widow”), Vilamovian wytwa (“widow”), Gothic 𐍅𐌹𐌳𐌿𐍅𐍉 (widuwō, “widow”), Old Irish fedb (“widow”), Welsh gweddw (“widow”), Asturian and Spanish viuda (“widow”), Aragonese and Latin vidua (“widow”), Catalan vídua (“widow”), French veuve (“widow”), Galician and Portuguese viúva (“widow”), Italian vedova (“widow”), Romanian văduvă (“widow”), Ancient Greek ἠΐθεος (ēḯtheos, “bachelor”), Albanian ve (“widow, widower”), Belarusian удава́ (udavá, “widow”), Czech, Slovak, and Slovene vdova (“widow”), Polish gdowa, wdowa (“widow”), Russian and Ukrainian вдова́ (vdová, “widow”), Serbo-Croatian udova, у̀дова (“widow”), Central Kurdish بێوە (bêwe, “widow”), Ossetian идӕдз (idæʒ, “widowed”), Persian بیوه (bive, bêva, “widow”), Sanskrit विधवा (vidhavā, “widow”).

Etymology adapted from Wiktionary, available under CC BY-SA 4.0.

Idioms1 entry

Last updated June 19, 2026