Which to use
“widowed” is an adjective and “widower” is a noun - they look or sound alike but fill different roles in a sentence.
- #24,057
- “widowed” frequency rank
- #28,087
- “widower” frequency rank
- 52144
- confusion score
Side-by-Side Comparison
| Feature | widowed | widower |
|---|---|---|
| Definition | Whose spouse has died or is gone missing; who has become a widow or widower. | A man whose spouse has died (and who has not remarried); a man in relation to his late spouse; masculine of widow. |
Letter map: widowed vs widower
Shared letters muted; letters that set widowed and widower apart highlighted. Shared run: 6.
Part-of-speech tell for widowed / widower
Our dataset has no pronunciation recorded for both members, so the reliable separator here is grammatical: widowed is anadjective and widoweranoun. On the page they differ by a single letter - d in “widowed” becomes r in “widower”. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 52144, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.
widowed is recorded at frequency rank #24,057, classified as anadj. widower is at rank #28,087, tagged as anoun, pronounced /ˈwɪdoʊɚ/.
Glosses for this pair are partially populated in our dataset, but the full side-by-side definitions above should still guide you to the right choice.
With a confusion score of 52144, this pair ranks #159,509 of 530,003 scored English confusable pairs - roughly mid-pack for confusability.
Orthographic DNA of widowed vs widower
Shared letters: deiow. Private to "widowed": -. Private to "widower": r.
"widowed" · 7 letters · shape CVCVCVC · "widower" · 7 letters · shape CVCVCVC
Known mistypes of this pair
Frequently Asked Questions
Is swapping "widowed" for "widower" ever safe?
Which is more common, "widowed" or "widower"?
What to do next
Done with this confusable. These links stay specific to "widowed" and "widower".
- Full dictionary entry for "widowed" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
- Full dictionary entry for "widower" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
- This pair ranks #159,509 of 530,003 scored English confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
- "widowed" and "widower" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "widow vs widower". Nearby pair
- Recorded mistypes exist for at least one side of this pair, useful when a spell-checker or OCR lands on the wrong form. See mistypes
Confusion rank #159,509 of 530,003 scored English pairs, corpus vintage 2026-09-03, not spelling advice.