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:
“With malice toward none, with charity for all, with firmness in the right, as God gives us to see the right, let us strive on to finish the work we are in, to bind up the nation’s wounds, to care for him who shall have borne the battle, and for his widow and his orphan, to do all which may achieve and cherish a just and lasting peace among ourselves, and with all nations.”
—Abraham Lincoln (1809–1865)
“A widow is a fascinating being with the flavor of maturity, the spice of experience, the piquancy of novelty, the tang of practised coquetry, and the halo of one man’s approval.”
—Helen Rowland (1875–1950)
“. . . A widow bird sat mourning for her love
Upon a wintry bough;
The frozen wind crept on above,
The freezing stream below.”
—Percy Bysshe Shelley (1792–1822)