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widow

noun
/ˈwɪd.əʊ/UK/ˈwɪd.oʊ/US

Etymology

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”).

  1. inherited from *h₁widʰéwh₂✻
  2. inherited from *widuwǭ✻
  3. inherited from *widuwā✻
  4. inherited from widuwe
  5. inherited from widwe

Definitions

  1. A person whose spouse is absent

    A person whose spouse is absent:

  2. An additional hand of playing cards dealt face-down in some card games, to be used by the…

    An additional hand of playing cards dealt face-down in some card games, to be used by the highest bidder.

  3. A single line of type that ends a paragraph but is separated from it by being carried…

    A single line of type that ends a paragraph but is separated from it by being carried over to the next page or column.

  4. ›+ 5 more definitions

    1. Any venomous spider of the genus Latrodectus (called "widows" because of the practice of…

      Any venomous spider of the genus Latrodectus (called "widows" because of the practice of sexual cannibalism observed among many of these species).

    2. To make a widow or widower of someone

      To make a widow or widower of someone; to cause the death of the spouse of.

    3. To 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 me.

    4. To endow with a widow's right.

    5. To be widow to.

The neighborhood

Derived

alpha widow, black widow, chuck-will's-widow, Dutch widow, false widow, golf widow, grass widow, half-widow, hempen widow, hemp-widow, merry widow, military widow, trans widow, war widow, widow bewitched, widow bird, widow cleansing, widow finch, widow foreclosure, widow-hunter, widow inheritance, widow maker, widow-maker, widow monkey, widow's mite, widow-wail

Vish — recursive loop

A definitional loop anchored at widow. Each word in the ring is defined by the next; follow the chain far enough and it folds back on itself. Scroll to it and watch.

01widow02games03olympic04thessaly05greece06republic07emperor08empress

A definitional loop anchored at widow. Each word in the ring appears in the definition of the next; follow the chain far enough and it folds back on itself.

8 hops · closes at widow

curated · pre-corpus. live cycle detection across the full graph is the next major milestone.

sense glosses and etymology drawn from English Wiktionary · source · CC-BY-SA