widow-maker

See also: widowmaker and widow maker

English

From widow +‎ maker.

(General American) enPR: wĭʹdō-mā'kər, -də-, IPA^(key): /ˈwɪ.ɾoʊˌmeɪ.kɚ/, /-də-/
Audio (AU) (file)
Hyphenation: wid‧ow-mak‧er

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, 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 606515358, [Act V, scene ii]:
  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.

something which or someone who takes the lives of men