Widow

Widow

A widow is a woman whose spouse or significant other has died, while a widower is a man whose spouse or significant other has died. The state of having lost one's spouse to death is termed widowhood or occasionally viduity. The adjective form is widowed. The treatment of widows around the world varies, but unequal benefits and treatment generally received by widows versus widowers globally has spurred an interest in the issue by human rights activists.

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Famous quotes containing the word widow:

    “When you got to the table you couldn’t go right to eating, but you had to wait for the widow to tuck down her head and grumble a little over the victuals, though there warn’t really anything the matter with them. That is, nothing only everything was cooked by itself. In a barrel of odds and ends it is different; things get mixed up, and the juice kind of swaps around, and the things go better.”
    —Mark Twain [Samuel Langhorne Clemens] (1835–1910)

    “For all of them have contributed out of their abundance; but she out of her poverty has put in everything she had, all she had to live on.”
    —Bible: New Testament, Mark 12:44.

    Jesus watching the widow contribute her two mites.

    “Jesus: Senor, the widow Gomez delivered a son this morning, a boy.
    Guthrie McCabe: Bully for the widow Gomez.
    Jesus: But Senor, it has been more than a year ago since Senor Antonio Gomez has been buried in the church house.
    McCabe: Well, there’s some men y’a just can’t trust to stay where you put ‘em.”
    —Frank S. Nugent (1908–1965)