A woman temporarily or permanently separated from her husband. Many times during and after the American West was settled, farmers decided that they had enough of such a bleak life, whereupon they left their wives and children. These abandoned women were known as grass widows, left out to grass on the Great Plains. (The phrase is, however, much older. It was first used in 16th-century England to describe women of easy virtue who “slept” on beds of grass instead of mattresses and bed linen.) “Grass widow” came to be applied to the wives of traveling salesmen, professional athletes, and other men who spent much of their year on the road. As that usage became obsolete, similar phrases appeared: golf widow, fishing or hunting widow, and any other sport that claimed their hubby's attention.

Female mourning costume. The word “weed” comes from an Old English word for “garment.” As a phrase to wear widow's weeds simply means to be in mourning. Many cultures have had or still have a custom of wearing distinctive clothing to mark a husband's death. In Victorian England, for example, a widow wore black for the first year and a day, then moved through dark purple and other somber colors to lighter shades. However, the queen who gave her name to the era wore no other color than black after the death of her beloved husband Prince Albert. Many widows in many Mediterranean countries, most notable Greece and southern Italy, wear black for the rest of their lives.