widowed, ppl. a.
(ˈwɪdəʊd)
[f. widow n.1 or n.2 or v. + -ed.]
1. Made or become a widow (or widower); bereaved of one's husband (or wife). Also of an animal, esp. a bird: Bereaved of its mate.
| 1606 Warner Alb. Eng. xiv. lxxxvi. 355 A pitious Storie of King Eugens widowed wife. a 1718 Prior Solomon iii. 193 A widow'd Daughter. 1730–46 Thomson Autumn 974 Some widowed songster pours his plaint. 1813 Scott Trierm. i. i, Constant and true as the widow'd dove. 1823 ― Quentin D. Introd., He was a widowed husband and childless father. 1855 Macaulay Hist. Eng. xvii. IV. 5 He was a child at his widowed mother's knee. 1885 Mistletoe Bough 28/1 An acquaintance of mine—a twice widowed wife. 1893 T. F. Tout Edw. I xi. (1896) 182 There was..talk of a marriage between the widowed Edward and the French king's sister. |
b. transf.
| c 1600 Shakes. Sonn. xcvii. 8 The teeming Autumne big with ritch increase..Like widdowed wombes after their Lords decease. 1627 May Lucan v. 928 Sleepelesse she spent in her now widow'd bed..the night that followed. 1634 Heywood Maidenh. well lost i. i, What is't to me? If being a Bride, you haue a widdowed fortune. 1725 Pope Odyss. i. 455 Your widow'd hours,..with female toil And various labours of the loom, beguile. 1768 C. Shaw Monody xiv. (1769) 12 How shall I find repose on a sad widow'd bed? 1780 Cowper Doves 36 Denied th' endearments of thine eye, This widow'd heart would break. 1825 T. Hook Sayings Ser. ii. Pass. & Princ. iii, For..six and twenty years had the veteran lover..solaced himself in widowed singleness. 1828 P. Cunningham N.S. Wales (ed. 3) II. 279 She tripped out of doors to solace her widowed heart with the joys of a second husband. 1894 M. Dyan Man's Keeping xviii, He could only hold the poor widowed hand tenderly in his while he told her the tiny details of those last few days. |
2. fig. Deprived of a partner, friend, companion, or mate; bereaved; hence, deserted, desolate, solitary.
| 1633 P. Fletcher Purple Isl. ii. iv, Straight from the ashes..A new-born Phœnix flies, & widow'd place resumes. 1687 Norris Coll. Misc. 17 No Second Friendship can be found To match my mourning Widow'd Love. a 1763 Shenstone Elegies viii. 33 From Twitnam's widow'd bow'r. 1763 Churchill Proph. Famine 498 What if we seiz'd, like a destroying flood, Their widow'd plains. 1820 Shelley Naples 108 Widowed Genoa wan By moonlight spells ancestral epitaphs. 1850 Tennyson In Mem. lxxxv. 113 My heart, tho' widow'd, may not rest Quite on the love of what is gone. 1908 E. V. Lucas Over Bemerton's x, He sees far more with his widowed orb than the ordinary observer does with two. |
b. Of an elm: Not ‘mated’ with a vine; conversely of the vine; also of a branch. (After L. ulmus and vitis vidua, ramus viduus.)
| 1743 Francis tr. Hor. Odes iv. v. 44 The hind Weds to the widow'd elm his vine. 1756 Mason Ode to Indep. vii, When pining Care,..sees thee, like the weak, and widow'd Vine, Winding thy blasted tendrills o'er the plain. 1763 Mills Pract. Husb. IV. 357 No shoots should be suffered to grow out of the firm wood, unless they are wanted in order to marry them to a widowed branch. |