grass widow
nounEtymology
The word appears in the Germanic languages in different forms and senses, evidently being ancient, but the oldest (both 16th century) are English grasse wydowe and Middle Low German grasswēdewe, both meaning “girl who has lost her virginity, harlot”. Therefore “grass” in all likelihood refers to a bedding for premarital sex. Compare the expression green gown (“loss of virginity”). The girl became a “widow” in the sense that she was neither married nor a virgin. The sense then developed through “married woman who has relations in her husband’s absence” to the contemporary, softened meaning. Compare Dutch grasweduwe, Swedish gräsänka, German Strohwitwe. Etymonline cites the book Vocabulary of East Anglia (1830) by Rev. Robert Forby, which records the term in that region as essentially referring to a woman abandoned after an informal marriage.
- derived from Strohwitwe
- derived from gräsänka
- derived from grasweduwe
- derived from grasse wydowe and Middle Low German grasswēdewe
Definitions
A married woman whose spouse is away.
- "Can't help it. I'm a lone, lorn grass-widow, dear, but I will not sleep in my stays."
- Then Mrs. Gessler shook her head. "Well, you've joined the biggest army on earth. You're the great American institution that never gets mentioned on Fourth of July -- a grass widow with two small children to support. The dirty bastards."
- And who ever heard of a demon sending his wife a divorce? When a demon marries a daughter of mortals,he usually lets her remain a grass widow.
An unmarried woman who has had premarital sexual relations
An unmarried woman who has had premarital sexual relations; a former mistress.
The neighborhood
Vish — recursive loop
No curated loop yet for grass widow. Loops are being traced one word at a time while the ingestion pipeline matures.
sense glosses and etymology drawn from English Wiktionary · source · CC-BY-SA