widow
/ˈwɪd.əʊ/
"widow" is a 5-letter English headword indexed on PlainSpell.
The verdict
“widow” has 7 generated spelling variants in the English index at frequency #6,317. The variants make it a useful spelling check.
- #6,317
- frequency rank, English
- 1,759
- “W” headwords
- 7
- tracked misspellings
- 12
- confusable pairs
According to Wiktionary data (CC BY-SA, analyzed September 3, 2026) - A person whose spouse is absent:
Corpus desk
Index EN-widow · widow · English
widow · rank #6,317 · 7 variants · 12 confusables
- FREQ-COMMON #6,317
- LEN-MID 5 letters
- VOW-2 2 vowels
- CONFUS-MID 12 pairs
- VAR-MID 7 variants
- BOOK-MID 1,759
- PHOTO-FINISH wears
Nearest frequency peer: wears (-1 rank slots)
Read with this headword: Spelling guide for this pattern
Desk codes from Wiktionary headword shape, FrequencyWords rank tier, confusable-pair count, generated misspelling depth, letter-cohort book size, and photo-finish peer. Not a difficulty grade.
Rank peers near misspelling magnet “widow”
Same rarity band: useful when a typo lands on a peer headword
- viral
viral
93,687 corpus weight
- warehouse
warehouse
93,686 corpus weight
- wears
wears
93,685 corpus weight
- widow
widow
93,684 corpus weight
- wives
wives
93,683 corpus weight
- adjust
adjust
93,681 corpus weight
What this shows “widow” sits among these FrequencyWords peers; misspelling depth is tracked separately in the edit-distance chart.
Visual similarity to commonly confused words
How many letter changes separate each confused pair (Levenshtein distance, normalized).
Source: PlainSpell confusable corpus (Wiktionary, CC BY-SA).
| Property | Value |
|---|---|
| Headword | widow |
| Language | English |
| Part of speech | Noun |
| IPA | /ˈwɪd.əʊ/ |
| Letters | 5 |
| Frequency rank | #6,317 |
| Misspellings tracked | 7 |
| Confusable pairs | 12 |
| Source | Wiktionary (kaikki.org) |
Frequency seat of misspelling magnet “widow”
A misspelling magnet
The generator records 7 spelling variants around widow (IPA /ˈwɪd.əʊ/), anoun. Corpus frequency is #6,317 among 1,759 “W” headwords. Wiktionary lists 6 senses, so context still picks the gloss.
Our generated misspelling index lists 7 likely wrong-spelling variants for widow, with forms such as "iwdow", "wdiow", and "widdow". Each of these forms differs from the correct spelling by one small edit: a doubled letter, a dropped silent letter, or a substituted vowel. It also participates in 12 confusable-pair relationships, "wow", "width", "window", and more, a pairing that trips writers up because the two words share enough sound or shape to blur together.
Etymologically, the entry records: Etymology tree Proto-Indo-European *dwóh₁ Proto-Indo-European *dwi- Proto-Indo-European *dʰeh₁- Proto-Indo-European *h₁weydʰh₁- Proto-Indo-European *h₁widʰéwh₂ Proto-Germanic *widuwǭ Proto-West Germanic *widuwā Old English widuwe Middle English widwe Englis… The correct English form is widow, spelled W-I-D-O-W.
Definition
- 1A person whose spouse is absent:
- 2A person whose spouse is absent:
- 3A person whose spouse is absent:
- 4An additional hand of playing cards dealt face-down in some card games, to be used by the highest bidder.
- 5A single line of type that ends a paragraph but is separated from it by being carried over to the next page or column.
- 6Any venomous spider of the genus Latrodectus (called "widows" because of the practice of sexual cannibalism observed among many of these species).
Recorded use
Wiktionary examplesThese source excerpts show how widow appears in context. They illustrate usage; the definition above remains the entry’s reference meaning.
Now that he is a widow, he tries to win Olivia back through the songs and the music that brought them together all those years ago, leaving Olivia torn between moving forward with Josh or falling into the arms of the man she truly loves.
My aunt is a football widow in the fall and a basketball widow in the winter and early spring.
Etymology
Etymology tree Proto-Indo-European *dwóh₁ Proto-Indo-European *dwi- Proto-Indo-European *dʰeh₁- Proto-Indo-European *h₁weydʰh₁- Proto-Indo-European *h₁widʰéwh₂ Proto-Germanic *widuwǭ Proto-West Germanic *widuwā Old English widuwe Middle English widwe English widow PIE word *dwóh₁ From Middle English widow, from Old English widuwe (“widow”), from Proto-West Germanic *widuwā (“widow”), from Proto-Germanic *widuwǭ (“widow”), from Proto-Indo-European *h₁widʰéwh₂ (“widow”), possibly from *h₁weydʰh₁-, *widʰ- (“to separate, split, cleave, divide”), whence also wood from Old English widu, wudu. Cognates Cognate with Scots weedae, wedow, widdow (“widow”), Cimbrian bittaba (“widow”), Dutch weduwe, weeuw (“widow”), German Witwe (“widow”), Vilamovian wytwa (“widow”), Gothic 𐍅𐌹𐌳𐌿𐍅𐍉 (widuwō, “widow”), Old Irish fedb (“widow”), Welsh gweddw (“widow”), Asturian and Spanish viuda (“widow”), Aragonese and Latin vidua (“widow”), Catalan vídua (“widow”), French veuve (“widow”), Galician and Portuguese viúva (“widow”), Italian vedova (“widow”), Romanian văduvă (“widow”), Ancient Greek ἠΐθεος (ēḯtheos, “bachelor”), Albanian ve (“widow, widower”), Belarusian удава́ (udavá, “widow”), Czech, Slovak, and Slovene vdova (“widow”), Polish gdowa, wdowa (“widow”), Russian and Ukrainian вдова́ (vdová, “widow”), Serbo-Croatian udova, у̀дова (“widow”), Central Kurdish بێوە (bêwe, “widow”), Ossetian идӕдз (idæʒ, “widowed”), Persian بیوه (bive, bêva, “widow”), Sanskrit विधवा (vidhavā, “widow”).
This word in other languages
Common misspellings
Also misspelled as:
- iwdow
- wdiow
- widdow
- widoww
- widwo
- wiodw
- wwidow
Misspelling Pattern Breakdown
How far each generated variant is from the correct spelling of widow - expressed in single-character edits (insert, delete, or swap one letter). Bigger bars stand out at a glance; a one-edit slip is the hardest to catch.
Definitions, pronunciation, and etymology for this entry are drawn from Wiktionary via the kaikki.org structured extract (CC BY-SA); frequency ordering uses the FrequencyWords open word-frequency list (2018 English corpus, MIT). See the methodology for how each field is sourced and updated.
Frequently Asked Questions
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Similar English words by spelling shape
Same letter count and similar misspelling depth for "widow", not the corpus desk frequency band.
Same letter count
Frequency-ranked English headwords with 5 letters (nearest by frequency rank).
Similar misspelling depth
Headwords with a similar count of attested misspellings (7 here; floor ≥5).