Contextualizebeta

widow-maker

noun
/ˈwɪ.dəʊˌmeɪ.kəɹ/UK/ˈwɪ.doʊˌmeɪ.kəɹ/US

Etymology

From widow + maker. For sense 4, compare German Witwenmacher.

  1. inherited from maker
  2. formed as widow-maker — “widow + maker”

Definitions

  1. Something which or someone who takes a person's life, particularly men

    Something which or someone who takes a person's life, particularly men; a lethal hazard that affects mostly men or is specific to a primarily male trade.

    • O, it grieves my soul, / That I must draw this metal from my side / To be a widow-maker!
    • What is a woman that you forsake her, / And the hearth-fire and the home-acre, / To go with the old grey Widow-maker?

  2. The detached or broken limb of a tree, a hazard to those walking underneath.

  3. An occlusion of the left coronary artery or its anterior interventricular branch

    An occlusion of the left coronary artery or its anterior interventricular branch; which is likely to cause a fatal heart attack.

  4. ›+ 1 more definition

    1. The Lockheed F-104 Starfighter.

The neighborhood

Vish — recursive loop

No curated loop yet for widow-maker. 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