widder

plural widders

1. alternativedialectalAlternative spelling of widow.

   I wouldn't like the missus to be a widder: she's too darn good-lookin'."

   1920, Marie Conway Oemler, The Purple Heights

   5 more examples

   At the sewing- society the matter was fully discussed. Mrs. Greenfield, the doctor's wife, admitted that it would be an excellent match, "jest a child apiece, both on 'em well brought up, used to good company, and all that; but, land's sakes! he, with his mint o' money, a'n't a-goin' to marry a poor widder that ha'n't got nothin' but her husband's pictur' and her boy,--not he!"

   1858, Various, The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 2, Number 9, July, 1858

   And then, before the public mind had become sufficiently settled to inquire into the matter, the rumor changed itself into a piece of positive news:-- "The widder Kinzer's moved over into Ham's house, bag and baggage."

   1884, William O. Stoddard, Dab Kinzer

   She wuz a widder fer de secon' time, an' didn' have no child'en, an' could jes' as well come as not. "

   1901, Charles W. Chesnutt, The Marrow of Tradition

   "I'm a widder," asserted Taylor Gannon's relict, somewhat superfluously. "My man has done left me to do for myse'f as best I can. I kept the re-sort alone for six year. I have shore sawn some curious things when these here town folks comes up. But I want to say here an' now that, as a wife an' widder, I have never sawn nothing to compare with what's agoin' on in this place sence Perfesser Sevier come." The other woman straightened herself up from where she sat limply in her chair, and a gleam came into her faded eyes. "You don't mean to tell me that that there town feller is a-courtin' you a'ready!" she said with some animation. "I ain't plumb shore," replied the widow cautiously. Such an idea had never occurred to her, yet to decline the glory of it would be beyond even such strong feminine nature as this.

   1909 January 28, Grace MacGowan Cooke, “The Flight of Robert Sevier: Relating How, When, and Where He Flew”, in Lippincott's Monthly Magazine, volume 83, number 491, page 35

   There was five of us lads from the brickyard; 'Enry was gassed at Bapome, Sydney was drowned in a crater, 'Erbert was 'alved by a shell; Joe was the pick o' the posy, might 'a bin sifely at 'ome, Only son of 'is mother, 'er a widder as well.

   1958, Robert W. Service, Ballads of a Bohemian

plural Widders

1. A surname from German.