| 释义 |
grass widow
[Certainly f. grass n.1 + widow; cf. the equivalent MLG. graswedewe (= sense 1), Du. grasweduwe, Sw. gräsenka, Da. græsenke; also G. strohwittwe (lit. ‘straw-widow’). The modern continental Teut. words seem to have chiefly sense 2 below, but dialect glossaries often give sense 1 as locally current. The etymological notion is obscure, but the parallel forms disprove the notion that the word is a ‘corruption’ of grace-widow.
It has been suggested that in sense 1 grass (and G. stroh) may have been used with opposition to bed; cf. the etymology of bastard. Sense 2 may have arisen as an etymologizing interpretation of the compound (cf. grass n. 5 b) after it had ceased to be generally understood; in Eng. it seems to have appeared first as Anglo-Indian.]
1. An unmarried woman who has cohabited with one or more men; a discarded mistress. ? Obs.
1528More Dyaloge iii. xiii. 86 b, Tyndall wolde by thys waye make saynt Poule to say thus. Take & chese in but such a wydow as hath had but one husbande at onys..I thynke saynt Powle ment not so. For then had wyuys ben in his time lytel better than grasse wydowes be now. For they be yet as seuerall as a barbours chayre & neuer take but one at onys. 1582Reg. Bk. Stoke-by-Nayland, Suffolk Jan., The 31 day was buri'd Marie the daughtr of Elizabeth London graswidow. a1700B.E. Dict. Cant. Crew s.v., Widows Weeds. A Grass-Widow, one that pretends to have been Married, but never was, yet has Children. 1760Goldsm. Goddess of Silence Misc. Wks. 1837 I. xxvi. 329, I have made more matches in my time than a grass widow. 1785Grose Dict. Vulg. Tongue s.v., Widow's Weeds, A grass widow, a discarded mistress.
2. A married woman whose husband is absent from her.
1846J. J. Hooper Taking Census ii. 183 John Green's sister, (the grass widder, as lives with 'em,) she goes to her battling bench. 1853E. Clacey Lady's Visit Gold Diggings Austral. 255 The absence of so many of ‘the lords of creation’ in pursuit of what they value..more than all the women in the world—nuggets. The wives thus left in town to deplore their husbands' infatuation, are termed ‘grass-widows’—a mining expression. 1859Lang Wand. India 4 Grass widows in the hills are always writing to their husbands, when you drop in upon them. 1865Englishm. Mag. Aug. 138 The pretty grass-widow..is going because every one else is gone. 1884Lady Dufferin Viceregal Life India (1889) I. i. 4 Expectant husbands come out to meet the ‘grass widows’ who have travelled with us.
Hence grass-ˈwidow v. intr., to live as a grass-widow; ˈgrass-widowed ppl. a., temporarily living apart from one's husband; grass-ˈwidowhood, the condition of a grass-widow; also transf. So also grass-widower, [cf. G. strohwittwer, lit. ‘straw-widower’], a man living apart from his wife; hence grass-ˈwidowerhood, the condition of a grass-widower.
1862Rocky Mt. News (Denver) 14 June (Th.), David is a bachelor again, or rather a ‘grass-widower’. 1872W. B. Donne Euripides ix. 186 The real Helen..passed the score of years between the visit of Paris to Sparta and the fall of that city in a respectable grass-widowhood. 1878Life in the Mofussil II. 100 The Clergyman..was a grass widower, his wife being at home. 1881W. E. Norris Matrimony III. 92 Asking Nina how long her period of grass-widowhood was going to last. 1886N.Y. Evening Post 22 May (Farmer), All the grass-widowers and unmarried men. 1887Sat. Rev. 30 Apr. 624 The female plant..was brought to Europe before the male, and so, berryless, may be said to have suffered a grass-widowhood of some eighty years. 1892Critic (U.S.) 12 Mar. 154/1 She and her husband lived charmingly—apart, ‘grass-widowing’ here and there. 1894J. Knight Garrick xvi. 301 Johnson..insisted upon a grass widowhood before they proceeded to another election. 1926W. J. Locke Stories Near & Far 112 She could never resolve the problem whether she would have been happier or unhappier in a grass-widowed state. 1930Harwood & Browne Cynara 34 We're celebrating his grass-widowerhood. |