widow
noun · verb
Simple meaning
Someone who has lost a spouse and not remarried.
Pronunciation
Say it like this:
widohSay the bold part a little louder.
IPA pronunciation (US)
ˈwɪdoʊ
This word is pronounced essentially the same in American and British English, so one transcription covers both.
IPA (International Phonetic Alphabet) is a standard way of writing speech sounds.
Definition
Everyday modern meanings first, grouped by part of speech.
noun
A person who has lost a spouse and not remarried
A woman whose spouse (traditionally husband) has died (and who has not remarried); a woman in relation to her late spouse; feminine of widower.
A woman whose husband is dead especially one who has not remarried
(by extension, informal, often humorous or sarcastic, in combination) A woman whose husband is often away pursuing a hobby, career, etc.
A person whose spouse is absent
verb
transitivefigurative
To strip of anything valued.
transitive
To make a widow or widower of someone; to cause the death of the spouse of.
Word at a Glance
- Difficulty
- B2 · Upper Intermediate
- Frequency
- Moderately Common
- Typical Use
- Neutral / general English
Word Aura™
How this word commonly comes across.
Aura for this meaning
This meaning: A person who has lost a spouse and not remarried
Used this way, widow is a reasonably familiar word that usually carries little praise or criticism of its own. It turns up most in relationships contexts.
- Emotional tone
- Neutral
- Formality
- Neutral
- Intensity
- Not strongly marked
- How common
- Moderately common
- Connotation
- Matter-of-fact
- Usage feel
- Neutral and straightforward
Where it naturally appears
- Relationships
Nearby words
- widow woman , rarer, so it draws attention
Word Aura describes common impressions, not a measurement. Tone changes with sentence, speaker, relationship and situation.
More ways to use widow
- “The war widowed many women in the former Yugoslavia.”verb
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Common Patterns and Combinations
How this word naturally appears with others.
Word Family
Related forms, grouped by how they connect.
Inflected forms
Grammatical variations of the same word.
A man whose wife is dead especially one who has not remarried.
Compound terms
Established multiword terms.
A woman whose husband is dead especially one who has not remarried.
Mostly black African weaverbird.
A divorced woman or a woman who is separated from her husband.
A man who is divorced from (or separated from) his wife.
Old World annual having fragrant purple to deep crimson flower heads.
A woman whose husband has died in war.
Related words
Connected by subject or meaning, not by word formation.
A black garment (dress) worn by a widow as a sign of mourning.
More about this wordSynonyms, forms, origin
Synonyms
Sense: person who has lost a spouse and not remarried
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Dictionary data from Wiktionary via the Free Dictionary API. Simple meanings, combinations and word intelligence are built from verified reference data, no AI is used to load this page.