WIDOW
What does "WIDOW" mean?
A woman whose spouse has died and who has not remarried.
Meanings
- A woman who has lost her husband or wife to death and has not remarried. The widow wore black for a full year after the funeral.
- A single word or short line stranded at the top of a page or column in typesetting. The editor reworked the paragraph to remove an ugly widow. technical
- To make someone a widow by the death of their spouse. The war widowed thousands of young women. formal
Did you know?
- Typographers borrowed 'widow' for a lonely line stranded at the top of a page - its partner the 'orphan' is the line left behind at the bottom of the previous one.
Word origin
From Old English 'widewe', from Proto-Germanic 'widuwo', tracing back to the Proto-Indo-European root 'widh-' meaning 'to separate, be empty' - the same root behind 'divide'.
Remember it
WIDOW shares a deep root with DIVIDE: both come from an ancient word for being separated.
A little poem
Two cups still wait on the shelf-
she fills one, drinks, and sets it down
beside the one she cannot pour.
tercet
What it teaches
Grief is not the absence of love but its weight set down on one shoulder.
Quick facts
What does WIDOW mean?
A woman whose spouse has died and who has not remarried.
Is WIDOW a valid word?
Yes — WIDOW is one of the answer words in Wordul, the daily word game.
How many letters is WIDOW?
WIDOW has 5 letters and 2 syllables.
Where does WIDOW come from?
From Old English 'widewe', from Proto-Germanic 'widuwo', tracing back to the Proto-Indo-European root 'widh-' meaning 'to separate, be empty' - the same root behind 'divide'.
What can WIDOW teach us?
Grief is not the absence of love but its weight set down on one shoulder.
How players do
Be the first to solve it.