grass widow
- a woman divorced or otherwise separated from her husband
- a woman whose husband is often away for short periods of time
See grass widow in American Heritage Dictionary 4
noun- A woman who is divorced or separated from her husband.
- A woman whose husband is temporarily absent.
- An abandoned mistress.
- The mother of a child born out of wedlock.
Word History: The term
grass widow cries out for explanation of what
grass means and how
grass widow came to have its varied though related senses.
Grass probably refers to a bed of grass or hay as opposed to a real bed. This association would help explain the earliest recorded sense of the word (1528), “an unmarried woman who has lived with one or more men,” as well as the related senses “an abandoned mistress” and “the mother of an illegitimate child.” Later on, after the sense of
grass had been obscured, people may have interpreted
grass as equivalent to the figurative use of
pasture, as in
out to pasture. Hence
grass widow could have developed the senses “a divorced or separated wife” or “a wife whose husband is temporarily absent.”
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