[f. WIDOW sb.1 or 2.]
1. trans. To make a widow (or, rarely, widower) of; to reduce to widowhood; to bereave of one’s husband (or wife). Most commonly in pa. pple.: see also WIDOWED ppl. a.
13[?]. Cursor M., 24197 (Edinb.). Ik am nu widuit of mi spus.
1607. Shaks., Cor., V. vi. 153. In this City hee Hath widdowed and vnchilded many a one.
1748. Richardson, Clarissa, IV. 84. The Royal butchers, who … widow ten thousand at a brush, and make twice as many fatherless.
1814. Southey, Roderick, III. 290. One hour hath orphaned me and widowed me.
1884. Annie S. Swan, Dorothea Kirke, x. Be careful of yourself—for Dorothea’s sake. I would not like to see her early widowed.
1887. J. Hatton, Gay World, xv. When he widowed her, as he must do, being so much her senior, she would blossom out into a professional beauty.
b. fig. To deprive of a valuable or highly prized possession (person, thing or quality); to bereave. Usually in pa. pple. Deprived, bereft.
1595. Markham, Trag. Sir R. Grinuile, cxv. Beeing … widow’d of her comly shape.
1649. C. Wase, Sophocles, Electra, 53. The House Widow’d of Friends, and seiz’d upon by Fiends!
1677. Baker, in Rigaud, Corr. Sci. Men (1841), II. 18. The second equation is widowed of its geometrical construction.
1742. Young, Nt. Th., VIII. 1264. Wit, widow’d of good-sense, is worse than nought.
1791. Cowper, Iliad, V. 763. He … Lay’d Troy in dust, and widow’d all her streets.
1847. Le Fanu, T. O’Brien, 303. Odd niches and nooks—widowed of the clocks and presses.
1874. Motley, John of Barneveld, I. Pref. 8. France, widowed of Henry and waiting for Richelieu.
† 2. To survive as a widow, become the widow of. Obs. rare–1.
1606. Shaks., Ant. & Cl., I. ii. 26. Let mee be married to three Kings in a forenoone, and Widdow them all.
† 3. To endow with a widow’s right. Obs. rare–1.
1603. Shaks., Meas. for M., V. i. 429. For his Possessions,… We doe en-state, and widow you with all, To buy you a better husband.
Hence Widowing vbl. sb. and ppl. a. (in first quot. app. vaguely used for ‘funereal’).
1605[?]. Drayton, Poems Lyr. & Pastoral, Eglog vi. 105. Nor mournefull Cipresse nor sad widowing yew.
1906. Athenæum, 17 Nov., 614/3. The widowing of the hero is a valueless shadow upon a vigorously improbable … story.
1921. Public Opin., 18 Feb., 157/2. She had earned her widowing by eight years’ happiness.
