widow
/ˈwɪd.əʊ/
"widow" is a 5-letter English headword indexed on PlainSpell.
The verdict
“widow” is a regularly-used English word, ranked #6,317 in English word frequency and used as a noun.
- #6,317
- frequency rank, English
- 5
- letters
- 7
- tracked misspellings
- 12
- confusable pairs
According to Wiktionary data (CC BY-SA, analyzed May 6, 2026) - A person whose spouse is absent:
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) |
Where “widow” sits in English frequency
Spelling & Dictionary Insight
The English entry for widow is 5 letters long, classified as a noun, and transcribed in the International Phonetic Alphabet as /ˈwɪd.əʊ/. Corpus data places it at rank #6,317 in overall English word frequency, indicating it appears regularly in written and spoken text. Wiktionary records 6 distinct senses for this headword, so context determines which meaning a reader should apply.
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).
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
How do you spell "widow"?
What does "widow" mean?
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Is PlainSpell free to use?
Using “widow”
The practical upshot for anyone who landed here from a spell-check.
- The one correct English spelling is W-I-D-O-W - every other letter order is a misspelling in standard orthography.
- Say it as /ˈwɪd.əʊ/ (IPA); tap the speaker on the pronunciation badge to hear it where audio exists.
- Don't mix it up with “wow” - see the side-by-side comparison. widow vs wow
- Browse more English words and confusable pairs in the same reference. English words
Data Source
Wiktionary (via kaikki.org), licensed under CC BY-SA & GFDL. Word ordering uses an open word-frequency list; misspelling variants are generated by edit-distance from the correct headword.