Obs. exc. dial. [OE. widewa, masc. corresp. to widewe WIDOW sb.1] = WIDOWER1 1. † Also of common gender.
c. 1000. Instit. Polity, xxii. in Thorpe, Laws (1840), II. 332. Þæt he þanan-forð wydewa þurhwuniʓe.
1340. Ayenb., 193. And alneway me ssel ham bleþeliche yeue, and nameliche to þe poure ssamueste, and to þe uaderlease, an to wyfmen wodewen, and to oþre nieduolle. Ibid., 225. Þe stat of wodewehod … þet zaynte paul prayzeþ moche, þet zayþ to wodewon, ‘hou þet guod is, he him hyealde ine þet stat.’
c. 1480. Henryson, Orpheus & Eurydice, 297. A wofull wedow [v.r. wedaw] hamewart is he went.
1518. H. Watson, Hist. Oliver of Castile (Roxb.), B 4. Seynge that bothe partyes were wydowes,… it were moost conuenyent that he came theder for to wedde her.
1579. Tomson, Calvin’s Serm. Tim., 257/2. He abstened from marriage: whether hee neuer had a wife, or was a widowe, and kepte himself without one.
1633. Rutherford, Lett. (1765), II. xv. 341. Our Bridegroom cannot want a wife: can he live a widow?
1789. Charlotte Smith, Ethelinde (1814), IV. 93. He still lived a widow [ed. 1789 IV. 102 widower], on his estate in Jamaica.
1894. Crockett, Raiders, xxii. I had been a widow three years when I began to gang aboot Parton Hoose to see her.
attrib. c. 1560. A. Scott, Poems (S.T.S.), iv. 35. Wedow men þat wantis To steill a pair of swyvis.
c. 1700. Directions for Distrib. Estate T. Rawlins of Barrow-on-Soar (MS.). Those poor Widdow men and Widdow women that have a charge of children to keep.
1841. in S. C. Hall, Ireland, I. 30. Grace Connell doesn’t to say belong to Cork, but her father came here soon after she was born, a widow-man with only her.
