Word Confusion: Widow versus Widower

Posted January 4, 2023 by kddidit in Author Resources, Self-Editing, Word Confusions, Writing

Sure, two people can be widows. If they’re both women. In this word confusion widow versus widower, writers need to learn the difference in this gender distinction.

A widow will always be a woman while a widower will always be a man.

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Exploring Later . . .

You may also want to explore other gender-based word confusions such as “Alumna versus Alumnus“, “Attach vs Attaché vs Attachée“, “Blond(e)s & Brunet(te)s“, “Chargé d’affaires vs Chargée d’affaires“, “Cher, Chéri versus Chère, Chérie“, “Confidant vs Confidante vs Confident“, “Fiancé versus Fiancée“, “Frances versus Francis“, “Petit versus Petite“, and/or “Protégé versus Protégée“.

Printing-wise, you may want to explore “Orphans, Rags, Runts, and Widows.

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Word Confusions . . .

. . . started as my way of dealing with a professional frustration with properly spelled words that were out of context in manuscripts I was editing as well as books I was reviewing. It evolved into a sharing of information with y’all. I’m hoping you’ll share with us words that have been a bête noire for you from either end.

If you found this post on “Widow versus Widower” interesting, consider subscribing to KD Did It, if you’d like to track this post for future updates.

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Widow	Widower
Marie Antoinette as a Widow was produced by artist/historian George S. Stuart and photographed by Peter d’Aprix and Dee Finning is under the CC BY-SA 3.0 license, via Wikimedia Commons and courtesy of the Museum of Ventura County.	An Elderly Man Covering His Face by Ivan Samkov uses a Legal Simplicity license, via Pexels. — A widower usually experiences grief.
Part of Grammar:
Noun; Verb, transitive Plural for the noun: widows Gerund: widowing Third person present verb: widows Past tense or past participle: widowed Present participle: widowing	Noun Plural: widowers
Noun: A woman who has lost her spouse by death and has not remarried To survive as the widow of [With modifier; humorous] A woman whose spouse is often away participating in a specified sport or activity To deprive of anything cherished or needed [Obsolete] To endow with a widow’s right [Printing; usually widows-and-orphans] A last word or short last line of a paragraph falling at the top of a page or column and considered undesirable [Cards] An additional hand or part of a hand, as one dealt to the table Verb, transitive: To become a widow or widower To lose one’s spouse through death	Noun: A man who has lost his spouse by death and has not remarried [With modifier; humorous] A man whose spouse is often away participating in a specified sport or activity
Examples:
Noun: Your neighbor is a widow. I had been a widow for five years. His property had been left to his widow. He visited the widow of an old school friend. She’s a golf widow. A surprise attack widowed the army of its supplies. The five thousand pounds was her widow’s right. Cleaning up typographical widows, rags, runts, and orphans balances your layout, eliminates unintended white space that calls more attention than necessary to the single word, and makes it easier for the reader to follow. Verb, transitive: He was recently widowed. She was widowed by the war. She was widowed in 1983.	Noun: Henry is a widower, so he’s fair game. Her new-found passion has turned me into a tennis widower. Ten years later her widower remarried. I had been a widower for five years. Her property had been left to her widower. The ceremony was attended by the widower of the Pulitzer Prize-winning author Carol Shields.
Derivatives:
Adjective: widowed Noun: widow-maker, widowhood, widowmaker	Adjective: widowered Noun: widowerhood
History of the Word:
Old English widewe, from an Indo-European root meaning be empty; compare with the Sanskrit vidh meaning be destitute, the Latin viduus meaning bereft, widowed, and the Greek ēitheos meaning unmarried man.	Middle English widewer, alteration of wedow meaning widow, widower, from Old English wuduwa meaning widower; akin to the Old English wuduwe meaning widow.

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C’mon, get it out of your system, bitch, whine, moan . . . which words are your pet peeves? Also, please note that I try to be as accurate as I can, but mistakes happen or I miss something. Email me if you find errors, so I can fix them . . . and we’ll all benefit!

Satisfy your curiosity about other Word Confusions on its homepage or more generally explore the index of self-editing posts. You may also want to explore Book Layout & Formatting Ideas, Formatting Tips, Grammar Explanations, Linguistics, Publishing Tips, the Properly Punctuated, Writing Ideas and Resources, and Working Your Website.

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