Word.ws English Dictionary

widow-maker

Syllables: wid·ow-mak·erUK/ˈwɪ.dəʊˌmeɪ.kəɹ/US/ˈwɪ.doʊˌmeɪ.kəɹ/

widow-maker noun: something which or someone who takes a person's life, particularly men; a lethal hazard that affects mostly men or is specific to a primarily male trade.

Noun

widow-maker (plural widow-makers)

  1. (idiomatic) Something which or someone who takes a person's life, particularly men; a lethal hazard that affects mostly men or is specific to a primarily male trade.
    • O, it grieves my soul, / That I must draw this metal from my side / To be a widow-maker!c. 1596 (date written), William Shakespeare, “The Life and Death of King Iohn”, in Mr. William Shakespeares Comedies, Histories, & Tragedies […] (First Folio), London: […] Isaac Iaggard, and Ed[ward]...
    • What is a woman that you forsake her, / And the hearth-fire and the home-acre, / To go with the old grey Widow-maker?1906, Rudyard Kipling, Harp Song of the Dane Women
  2. The detached or broken limb of a tree, a hazard to those walking underneath.
    Synonyms:
    fool killer
  3. (informal) An occlusion of the left coronary artery or its anterior interventricular branch, which is likely to cause a fatal heart attack.
  4. (slang) The Lockheed F-104 Starfighter.

Synonyms of widow-maker

Forms of widow-maker

pluralwidow-makers
alternative formwidow maker
alternative formwidowmaker

Origin of widow-maker

From widow + maker. For sense 4, compare German Witwenmacher.

Questions about widow-maker

What does widow-maker mean?
Widow-maker means something which or someone who takes a person's life, particularly men; a lethal hazard that affects mostly men or is specific to a primarily male trade.
What part of speech is widow-maker?
Widow-maker is a noun.
How do you pronounce widow-maker?
Widow-maker is pronounced /ˈwɪ.dəʊˌmeɪ.kəɹ/ (UK).
What is the plural of widow-maker?
The plural of widow-maker is widow-makers.

Words near widow-maker in the dictionary

  1. widow's walk
  2. widow's walks
  3. widow's weeds
  4. widow-hunter
  5. widow-hunters
  6. widow-maker
  7. widow-makers
  8. widow-wail
  9. widowbird
  10. widowbirds
  11. widowdom

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: widow-maker (page history and authors). Text available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 license. Word.ws reformatted the entry and added links. Wiktionary data of 2026-09-02.

Last updated:

Pronunciation audio from Wikimedia Commons, each file under its own free license: en-au-widow-maker.ogg.

Cite this entry: “widow-maker.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/widow-maker. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.