widower

Etymology

It is inherited from Middle English widewer, also widwer,^[2][3][4] formed from Middle English widewe (“widow”) + -er.^[2][3][5][6] It replaced, in this sense, the Old English masculine widewa, which survived as widow "widower" in dialect.^[6][7][8] Comparable formations are Middle Dutch weduware (now Dutch weduwnaar), Middle Low German wedewere and Middle High German witewære (now German Witwer),^[5][6] and Medieval Latin viduarius occurs in British sources from the 13th century.^[5] Widow goes back to Old English widuwe, from Proto-Germanic *widuwǭ and Proto-Indo-European *h₁widʰéwh₂.^[1][6]

Earliest recorded meaning

A man whose wife has died and who has not married again: about 1390, in the A text of Langland's Piers Plowman, which pairs "wydeweris & wydewis".^[5][4] Etymonline dates the word to the late 14th century.^[6]

Semantic evolution

The Middle English Dictionary also records the word for a man who has had two wives.^[4] From 1587 it named one of an order of widowers with a special role in the Church, corresponding to the order of widows.^[5] From 1705 to 1855 it also meant a man separated from his wife or living apart from her for a long time, like the widow bewitched.^[5] Johnson (1755) defined it as "one who has lost his wife", quoting Sidney.^[9] Since 1898 it has been used with a noun in front of it, often humorously, for a man whose wife is often away at a sport or pastime.^[5][7] A separate noun widower, from the verb widow, meant from 1818 a weapon that makes widows: Milman wrote of a falchion called "the Widower of Women".^[5] In Scotland widowerhood was used for the state of being a widower, and in Oxfordshire a widower's peak was a point of hair in the middle of a man's forehead.^[10]

Timeline

• c. 1390 – a man whose wife has died and who has not married again.^[5][4]
• 1587 – a member of an order of widowers in the Church.^[5]
• 1705 – a man separated from his wife or long apart from her (obsolete by 1855).^[5]
• 1898 – with a noun before it, a man whose wife is often away at a sport or pastime.^[5]

Meanings

Noun

1. A man whose wife has died and who has not married again: He had been a widower for ten years.^[11][2][5]
2. A man regarded as having survived his wife and so having acquired legal rights that remarriage does not take away.^[2]
3. With a noun before it, often humorous: a man whose wife spends much of her time on a particular sport or pastime.^[5][7]

Word family

• widowered
• widowerhood
• grass widower

Related words

• widow

References

1. ^ a b Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b c d Merriam-Webster Unabridged Dictionary (2024), online ed., Springfield, Mass.: Merriam-Webster
3. ^ a b The American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language (online 2024), 5th ed., Boston: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt
4. ^ a b c d Kurath, Hans; Kuhn, Sherman M.; Lewis, Robert E., eds. (1952–2001), Middle English Dictionary, Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press; online edition ed. Frances McSparran et al. (2000–2018)
5. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m n Oxford English Dictionary Online (accessed March 2026), Oxford: Oxford University Press
6. ^ a b c d e Harper, Douglas. Online Etymology Dictionary, https://www.etymonline.com
7. ^ a b c Shorter Oxford English Dictionary on Historical Principles (2002), 5th ed., ed. William R. Trumble and Angus Stevenson, Oxford: Oxford University Press
8. ^ Dictionary.com Unabridged (2016), based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, New York: Random House
9. ^ Johnson, Samuel (1755), A Dictionary of the English Language, London; 4th ed. 1773; Johnson's Dictionary Online, ed. Beth Rapp Young et al.
10. ^ Wright, Joseph, ed. (1898–1905), The English Dialect Dictionary, 6 vols., Oxford: Henry Frowde; via EDD Online 4.0, University of Innsbruck (CC BY 4.0)
11. ^ Collins English Dictionary (2023), Glasgow: HarperCollins