widow-maker

plural widow-makers · alternative widow maker · alternative widowmaker

1. idiomaticSomething 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] Blount, published 1623, →OCLC, [Act V, scene ii]

   2 more examples

   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

   Finally, jobs that are 'widow-makers' should be rethought and restructured. In the heyday of the great sailing ships, around 1850, just before the coming of steam, every shipping company had a widow-maker on its hands once in a while. ... One typical 'widow-maker' has been the job of international vice-president in the large American company.

   1973, Peter F. Drucker, Management: tasks, responsibilities, practices, published 1999, page 316

2. businessThe detached or broken limb of a tree, a hazard to those walking underneath.

   Synonyms: fool killer

3. informalmedicineAn occlusion of the left coronary artery or its anterior interventricular branch, which is likely to cause a fatal heart attack.
4. slanggovernmentThe Lockheed F-104 Starfighter.