widow-maker
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See also: widowmaker and widow maker
English
Alternative forms
Etymology
Pronunciation
- (General American) enPR: wĭʹdō-mā'kər, -də-, IPA(key): /ˈwɪ.ɾoʊˌmeɪ.kɚ/, /-də-/
Audio (AU) (file) - Hyphenation: wid‧ow-mak‧er
Noun
widow-maker (plural widow-makers)
- (idiomatic) Something which or someone who takes the lives of men; a lethal hazard that affects mostly men or is specific to a primarily male trade.
- 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 Blount, published 1623, →OCLC, :
- O, it grieves my soul,
That I must draw this metal from my side
To be a widow-maker!
- 1906, Rudyard Kipling, Harp Song of the Dane Women:
- What is a woman that you forsake her,
And the hearth-fire and the home-acre,
To go with the old grey Widow-maker?
- 1973, Peter F. Drucker, Management: tasks, responsibilities, practices, published 1999, page 316:
- 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.
- (forestry) The detached or broken limb of a tree, a hazard to those walking underneath.
- Synonym: fool killer
- (medicine, informal) The left coronary artery, or its anterior interventricular branch, occlusion of which is likely to cause a fatal heart attack.
- (slang) The Lockheed F-104 Starfighter.