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Widow   Listen
noun
Widow  n.  
1.
A woman who has lost her husband by death, and has not married again; one living bereaved of a husband. "A poor widow."
2.
(Card Playing) In various games (such as "hearts"), any extra hand or part of a hand, as one dealt to the table. It may be taken by one of the players under certain circumstances.
Grass widow. See under Grass.
Widow bewitched, a woman separated from her husband; a grass widow. (Colloq.)
Widow-in-mourning (Zool.), the macavahu.
Widow monkey (Zool.), a small South American monkey (Callithrix lugens); so called on account of its color, which is black except the dull whitish arms, neck, and face, and a ring of pure white around the face.
Widow's chamber (Eng. Law), in London, the apparel and furniture of the bedchamber of the widow of a freeman, to which she was formerly entitled.






Collaborative International Dictionary of English 0.48








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"Widow" Quotes from Famous Books



... stocked it with a few of the coarsest household goods, and whatever provisions came to hand, offered entertainment to such wreckers and 'soundsers' as happened to be in its vicinity. The present incumbent of the hostel was a woman, claiming to be a widow, of the name of Rose; bearing in most respects no resemblance whatever to any of her predecessors. Where she was born, or had hitherto resided, none of us knew: all that gossip could, gather was that she had unexpectedly descended from ...
— Continental Monthly, Vol. I., No. IV., April, 1862 - Devoted To Literature And National Policy • Various

... that though he was fond of the "Spanish Friar," he could not defend it from the imputation of Gothic and unnatural irregularity; "for mirth and gravity destroy each other, and are no more to be allowed for decent, than a gay widow laughing ...
— The Dramatic Works of John Dryden Vol. I. - With a Life of the Author • Sir Walter Scott

... which the pilgrims used to pass on their way to St. Jaques le Grand; and when Helena arrived at this city, she heard that a hospitable widow dwelt there, who used to receive into her house the female pilgrims that were going to visit the shrine of that saint, giving them lodging and kind entertainment. To this good lady, therefore, Helena went, and the widow ...
— Tales from Shakespeare • Charles Lamb and Mary Lamb

... was the widow of a government official, had a small fortune besides her pension, and lived in her own little house opposite the hotel close by the market. She was an unassuming woman, whose husband had influenced her in everything; he had been her pride, her light, and when she lost him, ...
— The Bridal March; One Day • Bjornstjerne Bjornson

... reached the shingles, the curling breakers rolled the bodies of several of the sufferers almost to their feet. The most lively interest was now excited towards a small rock, which jutted out of the sand a little distance from the wreck. The two poor children of a fisherman's widow in the village, were playing in a cavity of this rock, when the tide surrounded them. Their voices were drowned by the roaring of the waters, and their fate would have been unknown, had not the wild appearance and frantic screams of the mother—come in search of her children—attracted notice. ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction - Vol. 13, No. 375, June 13, 1829 • Various

... present keeping and defence of the premises to two of his band, he drove away to another part of the town, to be sold at the post, as soon as the forms of the law, respecting notice of the sale, could be complied with. The poor widow, half distracted at being thus suddenly bereft of house and home, spent the remainder of the day in vainly endeavoring to procure some tenement into which she could remove with her furniture, or with ...
— The Rangers - [Subtitle: The Tory's Daughter] • D. P. Thompson

... fancy to some one bird, and will desert her own mate for him; but it is not stated that superiority or inferiority of plumage has anything to do with these fancies. Two instances are indeed given, of male birds being rejected, which had lost their ornamental plumage; but in both cases (a widow-finch and a silver pheasant) the long tail-plumes are the indication of sexual maturity. Such cases do not support the idea that males with the tail-feathers a trifle longer, or the colours a trifle brighter, are generally preferred, and that those which are only ...
— Darwinism (1889) • Alfred Russel Wallace

... I will come near to you to judgment; and I will be a swift witness against ... those that oppress the hireling in his wages, the widow, and the fatherless, and that turn aside the stranger from his right, and fear not me, saith ...
— Native Races and the War • Josephine Elizabeth Butler

... I assumed the care of my mother. She never married again, although according to the customs of our tribe she might have done so immediately after his death. Usually, however, the widow who has children remains single after her husband's death for two or three years; but the widow without children marries again immediately. After a warrior's death his widow returns to her people and may be given ...
— Geronimo's Story of His Life • Geronimo

... days before his death, the Council of the Institution of Civil Engineers awarded him the Howard Quinquennial prize for his improvements in the manufacture of iron and steel. At the request of his widow, it took the form of a bronze copy of the 'Mourners,' a piece of statuary by J. G. Lough, originally exhibited at the Great Exhibition of 1851, in the Crystal Palace. In 1869 the University of Oxford ...
— Heroes of the Telegraph • J. Munro

... of candles a woman dressed all in black had picked up the poor old Noah's ark and was looking at it wildly. She was a widow who had just lost her only child, a little son, and she was in a state of morbid ...
— The Christmas Angel • Abbie Farwell Brown

... you like Mr. Grandcourt, the happy lover?" said Mrs. Meyrick, who, in her way, was as much interested as Mab in the hints she had been hearing of vicissitude in in the life of a widow with daughters. ...
— Daniel Deronda • George Eliot

... renewed his order to his nightly patrols, to shoot the sentinels and cut off the picquets as before. He thought the measure quite as legitimate in such a war, as the burning the house and hanging the son of the widow. ...
— The Life of Francis Marion • William Gilmore Simms

... the right I stopped to take off my mittens; then I opened and closed it very quickly. I was at the house of Gredel Bauer, the widow of Matthias ...
— The Conscript - A Story of the French war of 1813 • Emile Erckmann

... and got a divorce. It was all a part of the business—the marriage, the bribe, the divorce. Some of those women made a big income out of it—they were married and divorced once a year. If Arthur had only got well—but, instead, he had a relapse and died. And there was the woman, made his widow by mischance as it were, with her child on her arm—whose child?—and a scoundrelly black-mailing lawyer to work up her case for her. Her claim was clear enough—the right of dower, a third of his estate. But if he had never meant to marry her? If he had been trapped ...
— Sanctuary • Edith Wharton

... closely observed at some smaller place than here," said Hugues. "Besides, we need not go to an inn here. There is a decent, close-mouthed woman I know, a butcher's widow, who will lodge you if her rooms are not taken. It would be best to avoid the inns and go to her house at once. As like as not, if the Count did hunt this road, he would pass through the town without guessing you were at ...
— The Bright Face of Danger • Robert Neilson Stephens

... heard that, Father Ingulph forgot his robes to indulge in a curse. "Does he think we have possession of the widow's blessed oil-cruse? If the larder had not been stocked for a week's feasting, we must needs have been starved under ere this. How much longer can we endure, even at one meal a day?" He sighed as he drew his belt ...
— The Ward of King Canute • Ottilie A. Liljencrantz

... Bassanello, near Civita Castellana. As the offspring of this union, Orsino Orsini, married in 1489, it is evident that his mother must have entered into wedlock at least sixteen years before. Ludovico Orsini died in 1489 or earlier. As his wife, and later as his widow, Adriana occupied one of the Orsini palaces in Rome, probably the one on Monte Giordano, near the Bridge of S. Angelo, this palace having subsequently been described as part of the estate which her ...
— Lucretia Borgia - According to Original Documents and Correspondence of Her Day • Ferdinand Gregorovius

... We cling very jealously to the term, "Father," as it has been applied to the men of God in the history of the Church. The picture is beautiful of the Roman Catholic priest, conscious of the reluctance of her neighbors to bear to the poor widow the evil news of the sudden death of her only son, walking quietly up the gravel path, and covering with his healthy hands the two withered ones as he met her at the doorway, answering her searching ...
— Masterpieces of Negro Eloquence - The Best Speeches Delivered by the Negro from the days of - Slavery to the Present Time • Various

... 9 And now there was a great mourning and lamentation among the people of Limhi, the widow mourning for her husband, the son and the daughter mourning for their father, and the brothers ...
— The Book Of Mormon - An Account Written By The Hand Of Mormon Upon Plates Taken - From The Plates Of Nephi • Anonymous

... the widow of the late Monsieur de Chastillon, of whom it was said that he governed the little King Charles VIII., with Bourdillon and Bonneval, who governed the royal blood. He died at Ferrara, where he had been ...
— The Tales Of The Heptameron, Vol. I. (of V.) • Margaret, Queen Of Navarre

... was digged in the church of Hedington for a widow, where her husband was buried in 1610. In this grave was a spring; the coffin was found firme; the bodie not rotten, but black; and in some places white spotts; the lumen was rotten. Mr. Wm. Scott's wife of this parish, from whom I have this, ...
— The Natural History of Wiltshire • John Aubrey

... stylish, dashing widow, with a suspicion of rouge on her somewhat faded cheeks, and an affectation of fashionable listlessness which a look of real amiability somewhat belied. She was one of those frivolous, good-natured women, who go through life without ever being moved by an actual pleasure or pain, so engrossed by ...
— A Noble Woman • Ann S. Stephens

... the empire, in a single campaign, by Tiberius and Drusus, the sons of Livia—the emperor's beloved wife. Agrippa returned shortly after from a successful war in the East, but sickened and died B.C. 12. By his death Julia was again a widow, and was given in marriage to Tiberius, whom Augustus afterward adopted as his successor. Drusus, his brother, remained in Gaul, to complete the subjugation of the Celtic tribes, and to check the incursions ...
— Ancient States and Empires • John Lord

... rejoiced that she had given no definite promise to Mr Maguire. There seemed to be now a job for her to do in the world which would render it quite unnecessary that she should look about for a husband. If her brother's widow were left penniless, with seven children, there would be no longer much question as to what she would do with her money. Perhaps the only person in the world that she cordially disliked was her sister-in-law. ...
— Miss Mackenzie • Anthony Trollope

... the number of widders that there is of widderers here at the P'int. That was what was in my mind," said Captain Ben, in a tone of meek apology. "There is the Widow Keens, she that was Azubah Muchmore. I don't know but what she would do; Lyddy used to think every thing of her, and she is a first-rate ...
— Humorous Masterpieces from American Literature • Various

... awaiting him for to welcome him. And Sir Tristram went with the steward, and the steward brought him where the lady sat at a table prepared for supper. And Sir Tristram perceived that the lady was very beautiful, but that she was clad in the deep weeds of a widow. ...
— The Story of the Champions of the Round Table • Howard Pyle

... susceptible king had recently been smitten by the brilliant black eyes of a certain Anne Boleyn, a maid-in-waiting at the court. The purpose of Henry was obvious; so was the means, he thought. For it had occurred to him that Catherine was his elder brother's widow, and, therefore, had no right, by church law, to marry him. To be sure, a papal dispensation had been obtained from Pope Julius II authorizing the marriage, but why not now obtain a revocation of that dispensation from the reigning Pope Clement ...
— A Political and Social History of Modern Europe V.1. • Carlton J. H. Hayes

... this widow, in her grief, Looked up to God, and found from him relief. She knew the Lord, before her husband died, And found Him one in whom she could confide; In all her trials meekly bowed her head, And found sweet ...
— The Emigrant Mechanic and Other Tales In Verse - Together With Numerous Songs Upon Canadian Subjects • Thomas Cowherd

... August, Friedrich, with his small Army, hardly above 15,000 I should guess, arrived at Frankfurt-on-Oder: "his Majesty," it seems, "lodged in the Lebus Suburb, in the house of a Clergyman's Widow; and was observed to go often out of doors, and listen to the cannonading, which was going on at Custrin." [Rodenbeck, i. 347.] From Landshut hither, he has come in nine days; the swiftest marching; a fiery spur of indignation being upon all ...
— History of Friedrich II. of Prussia, Vol. XVIII. (of XXI.) - Frederick The Great—Seven-Years War Rises to a Height.—1757-1759. • Thomas Carlyle

... week, and some a penny a month. Alice told them, that if some of them could only give a penny a year, she would gladly take that; and then, that they might not be ashamed of giving so little, she read to them the story of the "widow's mite." And when the girls laughed, because one little girl, whose mother was very poor, said, "She would bring a penny if she could ever get one," Alice kissed ...
— Self-Denial - or, Alice Wood, and Her Missionary Society • American Sunday-School Union

... that his innocent daughter, Giovanna, may be asked by Dante, on his return to earth, to pray for him. He is not pleased that his widow ...
— Confessions of a Book-Lover • Maurice Francis Egan

... that Jesus saw the Pharisees casting their gifts into the treasury with his own eyes (Luke xxi. 1), and the poor widow who threw in two mites, or is it possible to consider this, too, as a parable, without insisting that Jesus really sat opposite the sacred chest, and counted the alms, and knew that the widow had put in two mites, and had really nothing left? Of many things, as of ...
— The Silesian Horseherd - Questions of the Hour • Friedrich Max Mueller

... one not yet of age. Jolyon was cremated. By his special wish no one attended that ceremony, or wore black for him. The succession of his property, controlled to some extent by old Jolyon's Will, left his widow in possession of Robin Hill, with two thousand five hundred pounds a year for life. Apart from this the two Wills worked together in some complicated way to insure that each of Jolyon's three children should have ...
— Forsyte Saga • John Galsworthy

... the consequences of which might be terrible. It was resolved to send a new embassy to the Five Nations at once, composed of Cherououny called Le Reconcilie by the French, Chimeourimou, chief of the Montagnais, Pierre Magnan, and an Iroquois, adopted when young by a Montagnais widow. The delegates left for Lake Champlain on July 24th. One month after, an Indian came to Quebec with the news that the four delegates had been murdered by the Tsonnontouans. Magnan had murdered one of his compatriots in France, and by coming to ...
— The Makers of Canada: Champlain • N. E. Dionne

... Duhshala once more? That daughter of mine, of tender years, is now crying in grief. She is striking her body with her own hands and censuring the Pandavas. What, O Krishna, can be a greater grief to me than that my daughter of tender years should be a widow and all my daughters-in-law should become lordless. Alas, alas, behold, my daughter Duhshala, having cast off her grief and fears, is running hither and thither in search of the head of her husband. He who had checked all the Pandavas desirous of rescuing their ...
— The Mahabharata of Krishna-Dwaipayana Vyasa, Volume 3 - Books 8, 9, 10, 11 and 12 • Unknown

... answered, 'Madame la Comtesse. She was left a widow very shortly after her marriage. I ...
— The Poems And Prose Of Ernest Dowson • Ernest Dowson et al

... Augusta of Hesse; the Duke of Kent, the Princess Victoria Mary of Saxe-Coburg. The Duke of Sussex was already married, but not with the necessary consent of the crown, and the Duke of Cumberland was childless, having married three years earlier a divorced widow whom the queen, for private reasons, declined to receive. It is a striking proof of the discredit into which the royal family had fallen, since the old king virtually ceased to reign, that parliament, in spite of its anxiety about the ...
— The Political History of England - Vol XI - From Addington's Administration to the close of William - IV.'s Reign (1801-1837) • George Brodrick

... intrigante. I knew her to have been concerned indirectly with half a dozen big lobby schemes. She was rather wealthy. But she was seen everywhere, and everywhere was admired. She was as completely at home abroad as here in Washington. She was a widow, perhaps thirty-eight, handsome and fascinating, a delightful raconteur, and had the remarkable reputation of never indulging in scandal. She was the repository of more secrets than I should ...
— The Man on the Box • Harold MacGrath

... to the old house. They entertained here Lafayette, Louis Napoleon, Joseph Bonaparte and Jerome Bonaparte. Aaron Burr (1756-1836) in his old age, appeared at the mansion with a clergyman, and married Mme. Jumel, then a widow. She divorced him shortly afterward, and he died in poverty on Staten Island, 1836. Alexander Hamilton whom Burr killed in the famous duel at Weehawken, N.J. (July 11, 1804) owned a country place in the neighborhood, "Hamilton Grange," ...
— The Greatest Highway in the World • Anonymous

... made friends with the family—Mr. Peggotty, a big fisherman with a laugh like a gale of wind; Ham, his nephew, a big, overgrown boy who carried David from the coach on his back, and Mrs. Gummidge, who was the widow of Mr. ...
— Tales from Dickens • Charles Dickens and Hallie Erminie Rives

... another intimacy, it grew out of the fancy of the friends. Both of them were "good fellows," and they liked each other. This is all the explanation which their friendship requires. Stumpy was the oldest son of a widow, who managed with his assistance, to support her family of three children. Socially there was no difference in their standing. If the landlord of the Cliff House was a person of some consequence, on the ...
— The Coming Wave - The Hidden Treasure of High Rock • Oliver Optic

... account; and, tho' he sometimes made me remittances, I could get no account from him, nor any satisfactory state of our partnership while he lived. On his decease, the business was continued by his widow, who, being born and bred in Holland, where, as I have been inform'd, the knowledge of accounts makes a part of female education, she not only sent me as clear a state as she could find of the transactions past, ...
— Autobiography of Benjamin Franklin • Benjamin Franklin

... Ford. "The old mine will grow young again, like a widow who remarries! The bustle of the old days will soon begin with the blows of the pick, and mattock, blasts of powder, rumbling of wagons, neighing of horses, creaking of machines! I shall see it all again! I hope, Mr. Starr, that you will not think me too old ...
— The Underground City • Jules Verne

... it always remembered, were what the Princeps expected the senate to attend to: their duty, under the constitution. Instead, however, they fawned on Sejanus ad lib. Sejanus murdered Tiberius' son Drusus, and aspired to the hand of Livilla, his widow: she was the daughter of Germanicus and Agrippina; and she certainly, and Agrippina probably, were accessories to the murder of Drusus. For Agrippina was obsessed with hatred for Tiberius: with the idea that he had murdered her husband, and with thirst for revenge. Sejanus was ...
— The Crest-Wave of Evolution • Kenneth Morris

... Eddyism makes it look like a divine assistance. To the superficial there is no difference between a miracle performed at Lourdes by God at the intercession of the Blessed Virgin and a "cure" effected by the Widow of ...
— Explanation of Catholic Morals - A Concise, Reasoned, and Popular Exposition of Catholic Morals • John H. Stapleton

... Reuben's funeral, with his mother and Blossom at his side, walking slowly across the moist fields, in which the vivid green of the spring showed like patches of velvet on a garment of dingy cloth. In front of him his mother moved stiffly in her widow's weeds, which she still wore on occasions of ceremony, and in spite of her sincere sorrow for Reuben she cast a sharp eye more than once on the hem of her alpaca skirt, which showed a brown stain where she had allowed it to drag ...
— The Miller Of Old Church • Ellen Glasgow

... Quebec, under Washington in the battle of Long Island, and later at Monmouth, and retired with the rank of lieutenant colonel in 1779. Before the close of the Revolution he had begun the practice of law in New York, and had married the widow of a British army officer; entering politics, he became in turn a member of the State Assembly, Attorney-General, and United States Senator. But a mere enumeration of such details does not tell the story of Burr's life and character. Interwoven with the strands of ...
— Jefferson and his Colleagues - A Chronicle of the Virginia Dynasty, Volume 15 In The - Chronicles Of America Series • Allen Johnson

... Widow Kwakegwah's house, which lay about two miles back through the bush in a south-easterly direction. Wagimah was with me and, leaving the river road, we plunged back at once into the bush without either path or track, and steered our way by my compass. Sometimes it lay through a thick ...
— Missionary Work Among The Ojebway Indians • Edward Francis Wilson

... 'What!' cried Garrick, 'was Shakespeare marked with mulberries?' It became necessary to sever the head from the shoulders and replace it with one of purer marble. The statue was completed in 1758. Under the terms of Garrick's will, it became, on the death of his widow, the property of the nation, and it now stands in the entrance-hall of the British Museum. After the purists and the exacting have said their worst against the statue, it will yet be found—from the spirit of its execution, its cleverness, and 'go,' ...
— Art in England - Notes and Studies • Dutton Cook

... how the law estimates this advantage. Of her trials and sorrows, when she was made aware of her widowhood, we will say nothing. Sensitive natures will easily conjecture their extent and intensity. It is enough for the relief of such natures, if we say that the widow Munro was not wholly inconsolable. As a good economist, a sensible woman, with an eye properly regardful of the future, we are bound to suppose that she needed no lessons from Hamlet's mother to make the cold baked funeral-meats ...
— Guy Rivers: A Tale of Georgia • William Gilmore Simms

... is said, for the valour he displayed in the battle of Poictiers. The county of Burgundy, generally known as Franche-Comte, was not included in this donation, for it was an imperial fief; and it fell by inheritance in the female line to Margaret, dowager Countess of Flanders, widow of Count Louis II, who was killed at Crecy. The duchy and the county were soon, however, to be re-united, for Philip married Margaret, daughter and heiress of Louis de Male, Count of Flanders, and granddaughter of the above-named ...
— History of Holland • George Edmundson

... the gloom of her prison into the streets of Paris, she found herself a widow, homeless, almost friendless, and in the extreme of penury. But for her children, life would have been a burden from which she would have been glad to be relieved by the executioner's axe. The storms ...
— Hortense, Makers of History Series • John S. C. Abbott

... to remember, in order to be reasonably happy myself, that Mary had a gay heart, after all; that she was but nineteen; that, though already a widow, she did not mourn her young husband as one who could not be comforted; and that she must soon have been furnished with merrier music than the psalms, for another of the sour comments of the time is, 'Our Queen weareth the dule [weeds], but she can ...
— Penelope's Experiences in Scotland • Kate Douglas Wiggin

... to limp in his walk." Notwithstanding these injuries, he faithfully attended to his duties as representative at Hartford. In June, 1767, two years and two months after the death of his wife, Hannah, he was married to Mrs. Deborah Lothrop, widow of John Gardiner, of Gardiner's ...
— "Old Put" The Patriot • Frederick A. Ober

... love-song, mele ipo, is said to have been Kalola, a widow of Kamehameha I, at a time when she was an old woman; the place was Lahaina, and the occasion an amour between Liholiho (Kamehameha II) and a woman of rank. The last two verses of the poem have been omitted ...
— Unwritten Literature of Hawaii - The Sacred Songs of the Hula • Nathaniel Bright Emerson

... which her parents were concocting. She knew that her father was obliged to go to San Francisco, being called suddenly to administer the estate of a cousin who had recently died there, and that her mother and—as she supposed—herself were going with him to offer sympathy and help to the widow, an invalid with three little children. As to the idea of her being left behind; of her father's starting off on a long journey without his lieutenant-general; of her mother's parting from her only child, whom ...
— Queen Hildegarde • Laura Elizabeth Howe Richards

... publisher, and did pay to one author's widow (General Grant's) the largest copyright checks this world has seen —aggregating more than L80,000 ...
— Mark Twain, A Biography, 1835-1910, Complete - The Personal And Literary Life Of Samuel Langhorne Clemens • Albert Bigelow Paine

... her for herself," as she used to say: an illusive hope, in one of her rank, for which she was destined to pay dearly. She formed an attachment to the young Princess of Lamballe, daughter-in-law of the Duke of Penthievre, a widow at twenty years of age, affectionate and gentle, for whom she revived the post of lady-superintendent, abolished by Mary Leczinska. The court was in commotion, and the public murmured; the queen paid no heed, absorbed as she was in the new delights ...
— A Popular History of France From The Earliest Times - Volume VI. of VI. • Francois Pierre Guillaume Guizot

... both a boot-jack and a hair-comb, which I never used! You should have seen me then, you should have seen me when I lay down! I shall never forget MY FIRST LOVE—she was a girdle, so fine, so soft, and so charming, she threw herself into a tub of water for my sake! There was also a widow, who became glowing hot, but I left her standing till she got black again; there was also the first opera dancer, she gave me that cut which I now go with, she was so ferocious! My own hair-comb was in love with me, she lost all her teeth from the heart-ache; ...
— Andersen's Fairy Tales • Hans Christian Andersen

... converts. She's all right if she could let the boys alone, an' not be always tangled up in some flirtation that her friends has got to sit up nights scheming to get her out of. That pink bow an' that crepe veil shows she ain't got the right idea of her responsibilities as a widow. So I brought her up to my little cabin, just a quarter of a mile through the trees there, hopin' I'd get her mind turned on more sensible things than men. Gosh a'mighty! She's got a chance ...
— The Black Pearl • Mrs. Wilson Woodrow

... at home weakened his power. At the close of the year Catharine Howard was arrested on a charge of adultery; a Parliament which assembled in January 1542 passed a Bill of Attainder; and in February the Queen was sent to the block. She was replaced by the widow of Lord Latimer, Catharine Parr; and the influence of Norfolk in the king's counsels gradually gave way to that of Bishop Gardiner of Winchester. But Henry clung to the policy which the Duke favoured. At the end of 1541 ...
— History of the English People - Volume 4 (of 8) • John Richard Green

... speech of the family ghost. She said that Eliphalet Duncan seemed to have forgotten that she was married. But this did not upset Eliphalet at all; he remembered the whole case clearly, and he told her she was not a married ghost, but a widow, since her husband had been hanged for murdering her. Then the Duncan ghost drew attention to the great disparity in their ages, saying that he was nearly four hundred and fifty years old, while ...
— Tales of Fantasy and Fact • Brander Matthews

... to converse upon put the two more quickly at ease than could otherwise have been the case. Jasper was closely observant of the young widow; her finished graces made a strong appeal to his admiration, and even in some degree awed him. He saw that her beauty had matured, and it was more distinctly than ever of the type to which he paid reverence. Amy might take a foremost place among brilliant women. At a ...
— New Grub Street • George Gissing

... if I was the guardian of all the family, and an old old fellow that is fit to be the grandfather of you all; and in this character let me make my Lady Duchess her wedding present. They are the diamonds my father's widow left me. I had thought Beatrix might have had them a year ago; but they are good enough for a duchess, though not bright enough for the handsomest woman in the world." And he took the case out of his pocket in which the jewels were, and presented ...
— The History of Henry Esmond, Esq. • W. M. Thackeray

... and the motives by which she was instigated were unabated. In the year 1778, she being nineteen years of age, a proposal was made to her of living as a companion with a Mrs. Dawson of Bath, a widow lady, with one son already adult. Upon enquiry she found that Mrs. Dawson was a woman of great peculiarity of temper, that she had had a variety of companions in succession, and that no one had found it ...
— Memoirs of the Author of a Vindication of the Rights of Woman • William Godwin

... chair, with the boy in her lap, and Eleanor was kneeling before the object of her idolatry. As she tried to cover up the little fellow's face with her long, glossy, dark brown locks, and permitted him to pull them hither and thither as he would, she looked very beautiful in spite of the widow's cap which she still wore. There was a quiet, enduring, grateful sweetness about her face which grew so strongly upon those who knew her, as to make the great praise of her beauty which came from her old friends appear marvellously exaggerated to those ...
— Barchester Towers • Anthony Trollope

... a little garden—an unassuming one, it is true, but a pleasant spot of colour in the summer-time—and he wondered how it was that Father Moran was not ashamed of its neglected state, nor of the widow's kitchen. These things were, after all, immaterial. What was important was that he should find no faintest trace of whisky in Moran's room. It was a great relief to him not to notice any, and no doubt that was why Moran insisted on bringing ...
— The Lake • George Moore

... restoring it to its owner, she will feel glad that it did not fall into profane hands. I thought it right to look through it, in order to get some clue, if possible, to its destination; I fancy it was the silent comforter of a wife who went abroad with her husband for his health, and came home a widow; God bless her, whoever she is, for she evidently believes in and loves Him. What sort of a world can it be to those who don't? [4] Remember me affectionately to yourself and your dear ones, and now we've got ...
— The Life and Letters of Elizabeth Prentiss • George L. Prentiss

... much bent on cruelty as I was yesterday—that's clean beyond me; and the reason, God help me, is no great comfort to me after all—for it's just this: that when I do a hard thing, whether distraining a creature out of his bit of ground, selling a widow's pig, or fining a fellow for shooting a hare, I lose my appetite and have no heart for my meals; and as sure as I go asleep, I dream of all the misfortunes in life happening to me, and my guardian angel sitting laughing all the while and saying to me, "Didn't you bring ...
— Lord Kilgobbin • Charles Lever

... a work of art in the palatial headquarters that the commanding general highly appreciated—a splendid but somber painting of the queen regent in her widow's weeds, holding the boy king as a baby on her right shoulder, her back turned to the spectator, gloomy drapery flowing upon the carpet, her profile and pale brow and dark and lustrous hair shown, her gaze upon the child and his young eyes fixed upon the spectator. ...
— The Story of the Philippines and Our New Possessions, • Murat Halstead

... people went mad besides Michele's father. The streets of Messina were full of mad people. They told me of one who lost his wife. Within a fortnight he married a widow whose husband had been destroyed. This happy couple spent their honeymoon in digging out the bodies of their previous spouses and ...
— Castellinaria - and Other Sicilian Diversions • Henry Festing Jones

... money lent, Making out his cent per cent - Widow plump or maiden rare, Deaf and dumb to suitor's prayer - Tax collectors, whom in vain You implore to "call again" - Cautious voter, whom you find Slow in making up his mind - If you'd move them on the spot, Put a penny in ...
— Songs of a Savoyard • W. S. Gilbert

... suddenly withdrew his daughter from the suit and search of her lover,—they saw each other no more; her lover mourned her as one dead. In process of time your mother was constrained by her father to marry Mr. Cameron, and was left a widow with an only child,—yourself: she was poor;—very poor! and her love and anxiety for you at last induced her to listen to the addresses of my late uncle; for your sake she married again; again death dissolved the tie! ...
— Alice, or The Mysteries, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton

... steppin at ease, The rich men gaed up the temple ha'; Hasty, an' grippin her twa baubees, The widow cam efter, booit ...
— Poetical Works of George MacDonald, Vol. 2 • George MacDonald

... years of close contact have abated religious hatred; and occasional outbursts are due to priestly instigation. Hindus borrowed the Zenana system from their conquerors, who imitated them in discouraging widow-remarriages. Caste digs a gulf between followers of the rival creeds, but Mr. Banerjea's tales prove that a good understanding is possible. It is now imperilled by the curse of ...
— Tales of Bengal • S. B. Banerjea

... there was something to reproach you with, although it was not known to outsiders. While you were fighting your instincts and trying to live as a spotless widow, your character was undergoing a change: against your will, but not unconsciously, you were become a perfect fury. In this way your children acquired that timidity which they have never quite outgrown. Strangers began to notice this after a while, and ...
— The Dangerous Age • Karin Michaelis

... The widow of Noor ad Deen Ali resided still in the same place where her husband had lived. It was a stately fabric, adorned with marble pillars: but Shumse ad Deen did not stop to view it. At his entry he kissed the gate, and the piece of marble upon which his brother's ...
— The Arabian Nights Entertainments vol. 1 • Anon.

... She longed to urge still further upon her husband to make an effort to restrain the intense desire he felt, but could not. There seemed to be a seal upon her lips. Slowly she turned away to attend to her little ones, upon whom she now looked with something of that hopelessness which the widow feels, as she turns from the grave of her husband, and looks upon her ...
— The Lights and Shadows of Real Life • T.S. Arthur

... wonderful. There were many whippoorwills, or rather Brazilian birds related to them; they uttered at intervals through the night a succession of notes suggesting both those of our whippoorwill and those of our big chuck-will's-widow of the Gulf States, but not identical with either. There were other birds which were nearly akin to familiar birds of the United States: a dull- colored catbird, a dull-colored robin, and a sparrow belonging to the same genus as our common song-sparrow and sweetheart sparrow; Miller had heard ...
— Through the Brazilian Wilderness • Theodore Roosevelt

... received a thrashing from the farmer many years earlier. On ascending to the village and approaching the house they found Mrs. Edlin standing at the door, who at sight of them lifted her hands deprecatingly. "She's downstairs, if you'll believe me!" cried the widow. "Out o' bed she got, and nothing could turn her. What will come o't I do ...
— Jude the Obscure • Thomas Hardy

... in a trice Of widow Clicquot or Moet A blessed bottle, placed in ice, For the young poet they display. Like Hippocrene it scatters light, Its ebullition foaming white (Like other things I could relate) My heart of old would captivate. The last ...
— Eugene Oneguine [Onegin] - A Romance of Russian Life in Verse • Aleksandr Sergeevich Pushkin

... some trivial article, promising to return by a given time. She kept her word as to the time, but the leaven of the adversary was rapidly working. He led her to believe that he was the son of a wealthy widow who expected him to make "a good match," but that he was in the habit of gaining his point with this indulgent parent whenever he so desired. He intended, he said, to confess to his mother that he had fallen in love ...
— Fifteen Years With The Outcast • Mrs. Florence (Mother) Roberts

... interfere with the traffic of a utilitarian age and relegate them to a museum or doom them to be cut up as faggots. Country folk think nothing of antiquities, and a local estate agent or the village publican will make away with this relic of antiquity and give the "old rubbish" to Widow Smith for firing. Hence a large number have disappeared, and it is wonderful that so many have hitherto escaped. Let the eyes of squires and local antiquaries be ever on the watch lest those that remain are allowed ...
— Vanishing England • P. H. Ditchfield

... 1896), from an investigation of four hundred cases, found that in some cases the sexual impulse persisted to a very advanced age, and mentions a case of a woman of 70, twenty years past the menopause, who had been long a widow, but had recently married, and who declared that both desire and gratification were as great, if not ...
— Studies in the Psychology of Sex, Volume 3 (of 6) • Havelock Ellis

... lady's conduct to Walpole. This noble biographer sent her a copy of his Anecdotes, accompanied by a courtly and soothing note; but she was so much offended by his description of the Sigismunda, that she took no notice of his present. The widow of the artist was poor—and an opinion so ill-natured—so depreciating—and so untrue, injured the property which she wished to sell: she loved too the memory of her husband, and resented in the dignity of silence ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction - Vol. 14, Issue 382, July 25, 1829 • Various

... told of Barneveldt's widow. Her son plotting to avenge his father and crush the Stadtholder was discovered and imprisoned. His mother visited Maurice to ask his pardon. "Why," said he, "how is this—you value your son more than your husband! You did not ask pardon for him." "No," said Barneveldt's widow; "I did not ask ...
— A Wanderer in Holland • E. V. Lucas

... she still lamented the fate of the poor bereaved widow—that she was willing to give her satisfaction, and meant to forbid your ...
— The Works of Frederich Schiller in English • Frederich Schiller

... presidence of the Lord Steward, Lord Somers); and the principal, the Lord Mohun, being found guilty of the manslaughter (which, indeed, was forced upon him, and of which he repented most sincerely), pleaded his clergy; and so was discharged without any penalty. The widow of the slain nobleman, as it was told us in prison, showed an extraordinary spirit; and, though she had to wait for ten years before her son was old enough to compass it, declared she would have revenge of her husband's murderer. So much and suddenly had grief, ...
— Henry Esmond; The English Humourists; The Four Georges • William Makepeace Thackeray

... worker, known perhaps to a few outside of the circle in which she lived and labored, encouraged not by applauding throngs, but attracted and held to her toil, year after year, by sorrowful hearts and weeping eyes, and helpless hands that hang down the widow and the fatherless—these were the objects of ...
— Gathering Jewels - The Secret of a Beautiful Life: In Memoriam of Mr. & Mrs. James Knowles. Selected from Their Diaries. • James Knowles and Matilda Darroch Knowles

... in her; she did not and would not visit. All who sought her out were made more than welcome; but whether from the extreme delicacy of her health, which rendered visiting a burden, or because of her widow's dress of deepest mourning, which she had never laid aside, it came to be an accepted thing that she went nowhere. It was a great disappointment in Joppa; nevertheless it was impossible to harbor ill-will toward this lovely, high-bred lady, who drew all hearts to herself ...
— Only an Incident • Grace Denio Litchfield

... next would have but little time to devote to such things; and time and thought were both spent in the arrangement of his bouquet. Among the long list of Greys he found one that attracted him more than all the others—a widow, living in a quiet part of the city, quite near his daily route. So he sought and found the place and exact number. Fortune favored him. Standing at the door of a neat little frame cottage he beheld a young girl talking with two little children. She was not the blue-eyed, golden-haired ...
— How Ethel Hollister Became a Campfire Girl • Irene Elliott Benson

... is pitied or assisted in it. The rage of the passionate man is totally extinguished by the death of his enemy; but the hatred of the malicious is not buried even in the grave of his rival: he will envy the good name he has left behind him; he will envy him the tears of his widow, the prosperity of his children, the esteem of his friends, the praises of his epitaph—nay the ...
— Essays on Various Subjects - Principally Designed for Young Ladies • Hannah More

... and hang the head, Like to a lily withered; Next look thou like a sickly moon, Or like Jocasta in a swoon; Then weep and sigh and softly go, Like to a widow drown'd in woe, Or like a virgin full of ruth For the lost sweetheart of her youth; And all because, fair maid, thou art Insensible of all my smart, And of those evil days that be Now posting on to punish thee. The gods are ...
— The Hesperides & Noble Numbers: Vol. 1 and 2 • Robert Herrick

... Sir Edward Barnes's death, Heston Park, which belonged to Lady Barnes, was all that remained to her and her son. A park of a hundred acres and a few cottages went with the house; but there was no estate to support it, and it had to be let, to provide an income for the widow and the boy. Much of the expensive furniture had been sold before letting, but enough remained to satisfy the wants of a not very ...
— Marriage a la mode • Mrs. Humphry Ward

... Lord Huntinglen, who had kept in the background during the ceremony, and now stepping suddenly forward, caught the lady by the arm, and confronted her unworthy husband.—"The Lady Dalgarno," he continued, "shall remain as a widow in my house. A widow I esteem her, as much as if the grave had closed over ...
— The Fortunes of Nigel • Sir Walter Scott

... country community, therefore, there should be revival, in various forms, of the old "Bees," which had so much of a place in the former economy. If there is a widow who has no one to cut her wood, the men of the country church should assemble to do it. If there is a household whose bread winner and husbandman has died at the time of planting corn, let the men of the community gather at an ...
— The Evolution of the Country Community - A Study in Religious Sociology • Warren H. Wilson

... afterwards escaped in a very remarkable manner. When his captors were carrying him and others of his followers to the south, they were overtaken by a violent storm which obliged them to seek shelter in a retired house occupied by the widow of a shipmaster. After taking up their quarters, and, as they thought, providing for the safe custody of the prisoners, the woman noticed that the captives were Highlanders; and, in reference to the boisterous weather raging outside, she, as if unconsciously, exclaimed, "The ...
— History Of The Mackenzies • Alexander Mackenzie

... and a widow, and a fitting mate for a strong man like thee," replied Velo energetically. "I have seen many white women, but none so good to look upon as her. And she is ...
— Edward Barry - South Sea Pearler • Louis Becke

... better if Mrs. Dudley had not spoken so positively. Mr. Tinkham was set a-thinking. Why wouldn't the widow sell? Why had she changed her mind since yesterday? Why did Mr. Beal, the lawyer, not appear at the consultation? All these questions the shrewd little Tinkham asked himself, and all these questions he asked of Francis Gray ...
— The Hoosier School-boy • Edward Eggleston

... of the property was divided as follows: one half to the education and maintenance of Mr. Murray's three children, and the other half to his wife so long as she remained a widow. But in the event of her marrying again, her share was to be reduced by one-third and ...
— A Publisher and His Friends • Samuel Smiles

... dependances of the Arsenal in 1754. He was marqueteur especially. Examples of his work are both at South Kensington and in the Wallace collection, and in the Gallerie d'Apollon at the Louvre is the great secretary bureau, which he was making for Louis XV. at the time of his death, in or about 1765. His widow carried on the establishment; her foreman, J. Henry Riesener, completed the unfinished work. He was also a German, born in 1735 at Gladbach, near Cologne, and coming to Paris quite young entered Oeben's atelier. On his death he was made foreman, and two years after, when he ...
— Intarsia and Marquetry • F. Hamilton Jackson

... 'Harrigan'—you know that?" he said in English. The rag-time of "Harrigan" floated out on the street of Montauville. But I did not care to play things which could have no violin obligato, so I began to play what I remembered of waltzes dear to every Frenchman's heart—the tunes of the "Merry Widow." "Sylvia" went off with quite a dash. The concert was getting popular. Somebody wanted to send for a certain Alphonse who had an occarina. Two other poilus, men in the forties, came up, their dark-brown, horseshoe ...
— A Volunteer Poilu • Henry Sheahan

... that his departure might not seem abrupt; and, on the advantage of the first pause in the talk, was glad to make his escape. I was present when Paley was much interested and amused by an account given by one of the company, of a widow lady, who was of entirely sound mind, except that she believed herself made of glass. Given the vitrification, her conduct and discourse were consequent and rational, according to the particulars which Paley drew forth by numerous questions. Canes and parasols ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction - Vol. 14, Issue 405, December 19, 1829 • Various

... of countenance, as well as its pleasing and graceful manners, render it a favourite pet wherever it can be obtained. Its rich robe of yellowish-grey, mixed with green, adds to the attraction of its presence. There are several species of Sajouins, known as the Widow monkey, the Moloch, the Mitred monkey, and the Black-handed Sajouin—all of them dwellers in the tropical regions of America. The Doroucouli is another small species, that in the nocturnal forest often alarms the traveller by its singular cry; and an allied species of Doroucouli ...
— Quadrupeds, What They Are and Where Found - A Book of Zoology for Boys • Mayne Reid

... you, my child. You are early, and it was late ere you could retire to rest," said the voice of Hadassah, as, pale and sad in aspect, the widow ...
— Hebrew Heroes - A Tale Founded on Jewish History • AKA A.L.O.E. A.L.O.E., Charlotte Maria Tucker

... are attacking the boiled salmon, boiled beef, boiled cabbage, &c. As for the ducks, I certainly had some pease, very fine yellow stiff pease, that ought to have been split before they were boiled; but, with regard to the ducks, I saw the animals gobbled up before my eyes by an old widow lady and her party just as I was shrieking to the steward to bring a knife and fork to carve them. The fellow! (I mean the widow lady's whiskered companion)—I saw him eat pease with the very knife with which ...
— Little Travels and Roadside Sketches • William Makepeace Thackeray

... says I, "if you have no fear of Heaven, have you no fear of the Government? Do you want to be hung, and see your widow a breakin' her heart ...
— Sweet Cicely - Or Josiah Allen as a Politician • Josiah Allen's Wife (Marietta Holley)

... Xicotencatl, one of the princes or chiefs of Tlascala, through whom he acquired a great inheritance, and by whom he had a son Don Pedro, and a daughter Donna Leonora, married to Don Francisco de la Cueva, cousin to the Duke of Albuquerque, by whom she had four or five sons. The widow of Don Pedro destroyed in Guatimala, seems to have been ...
— A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Vol. IV. • Robert Kerr

... subject of his favorite pursuit and pastime, and John thought then that he could understand and condone some things he had seen and heard, at which at first he was inclined to look askance. But this matter of the Widow Cullom's was a different thing, and as he realized that he was expected to play a part, though a small one, in it, his heart sank within him that he had so far cast his fortunes upon the good will of a man who could plan and carry out so heartless and cruel ...
— David Harum - A Story of American Life • Edward Noyes Westcott



Words linked to "Widow" :   golf widow, dowager, leave behind, chuck-will's-widow, adult female, black widow, grass widow, mournful widow, widowhood



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