widower
/ˈwɪdoʊɚ/noun
widower is spelled W-I-D-O-W-E-R: 7 letters and 3 syllables. It appears 1.1 times per million words in written English, the 27,820th most frequent word form (wordfreq, 2021 data). As a noun, widower means “A man whose spouse has died (and who has not remarried); a man in relation to his late spouse; masculine of widow” (English Wiktionary, September 2026). The plural of widower is widowers.
How many letters and syllables are in widower?
| Letters | 7: W-I-D-O-W-E-R |
|---|---|
| Syllables | 3 (from its American pronunciation) |
| In writing | 1.1 times per million words; the 27,820th most frequent word form |
| Wrong spellings searched | none measured in search |
Sources: letters and syllables from the English Wiktionary's hyphenation or pronunciation and the CMU Pronouncing Dictionary; written frequency: wordfreq 3.1 (a 2021 snapshot of Wikipedia, subtitles, news, books, web text and social media).
How common is widower?
Widower appears 1.1 times per million words in written English, the 27,820th most frequent word form in the list.
Source: written frequency: wordfreq 3.1 (a 2021 snapshot of Wikipedia, subtitles, news, books, web text and social media).
How do you pronounce widower?
- US /ˈwɪdoʊɚ/
Widower has 3 syllables (counted from its American pronunciation in the CMU Pronouncing Dictionary).
Source: English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org (Wiktextract). Recordings: En-us-widower.ogg, Wikimedia Commons (author and licence on each file's page).
Forms of widower
- widowers plural
Source: English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org (Wiktextract).
What does widower mean?
The meanings the English Wiktionary records, quoted as written there (source below).
noun
- 1
A man whose spouse has died (and who has not remarried); a man in relation to his late spouse; masculine of widow.
Source: English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org (Wiktextract).
Widower in Spanish, French, German and Portuguese
In the sense a man whose spouse has died and who has not remarried:
Source: English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org (Wiktextract). Translations are Wiktionary's, by sense; a linked word has its own PlainSpell page.
Where does widower come from?
From Middle English widwere, equivalent to widow + -er.
Source: English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org (Wiktextract).