Definitions
American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition
- n. A poisonous New World spider (Latrodectus mactans), the female of which produces extremely toxic venom and has a black shiny body with red markings.
Wiktionary
- n. Any of several species of venomous spider, particularly Latrodectus sp.. The bite is painful to humans, rarely fatal to healthy individuals, but can be life-threatening or fatal to infants or young toddlers. Females are marked by a red hourglass shape on the abdomen (see photo, this page, and photos in Wikipedia). Mature males are smaller, of the same black color or a dark brown, have an elongated and slender abdomen (rather than the rotund abdomen of the mature female), and are marked on the dorsal of the abdomen with small flattened diamond shapes of the same scarlet color as the female's marks on the ventral of her abdomen.
- n. A woman who kills one or more of her lovers.
- n. A female martyr (a suicide bomber or shaheed), whose husband was killed.
WordNet 3.0
- n. venomous New World spider; the female is black with an hourglass-shaped red mark on the underside of the abdomen
Etymologies
- From the fact that the female eats its mate. (American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition)
Examples
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Lists
These user-created lists contain the word ‘black widow’.
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EN - coloured collocations
The bad news: There are possibly tens of thousands of colour collocations in English. The good news is that the pictures retrieved by Wordnik from flickr will probably match the terms this time.
black currant, black eye, black pudding, blue baby, Blue Beard, blue bell, blue berry, blue blood, Blue Book, blue bottle, blue cheese, blue chip and 280 more...
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black phrases/words
Tolkien worked in the black section
of the dictionary at one point in his lifeblack-about, Black Act, black afraid, black Africa, black African, black amber, Black America, Black American, black and blae, black and blue, black angry, black ant and 578 more...
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I Am A Starfish. I Speak With Paint.
List title totally stolen from she. Right, the stock entry for this list should be a two-word phrase where one of the words denotes a colour; even better if the expression has some metaphoric value...
black dog, tangerine dream, orange roughy, blue moon, blackguard, white house, purple rain, grey nurse, green thumb, yellow fever, sacre bleu, palo verde and 159 more...
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Malcolm-Hex
Words where 'black' has a negative connotation.
The awareness of this has been more publically discussed since the 60's, however with the 2008 presidental race, I am curious if any of ...black sheep, blacklist, blackmail, blackball, black hat, black mark, black day, black magic, black market, blackhole, black monday, black comedy and 65 more...
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Spiders
tarantula, black widow, brown recluse, orb-weaver, jumping spider, wolf spider, goliath birdeater, trapdoor spider, yellow sac spider, long-legged sac s..., redback spider, redback and 42 more...
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Black or White
black and white, snow-white, coal-black, blacksmith, whitesmith, blackball, white-box testing, Blackberry, white pages, black book, white paper, blacklist and 107 more...
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sionnach's Words
contumely, fomite, holmgang, poltroon, eleemosynary, obsidian, nugatory, grindcore, felch, recrudescent, pyx, parenteral and 3271 more...
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Words Covered in Faery Dust (B)
words that evoke magic, mystery, mayhem, magnificence or anything else that glimmers in the grass
balcony, bailey, baguette, bairn, balalaika, baldric, balefire, baby's breath, ballet, balm of gilead, balsam, baluster and 188 more...
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(Medical) Marijuana Strains
Names of various "medicinal" Cannabis strains, harvested from various sources.
grape ape, grape wreck, trainwreck, black domina, sweet wreck, cal-p, jack herer, purple princess, northern lights #5, amnesia haze, c5 haze, cambodian haze and 685 more...
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Names of U.S. Fighter Aircraft
These are the nicknames, not the model names. So the F-15 Eagle is listed here as "Eagle."
hawk, viper, peashooter, lightning, airacobra, warhawk, lancer, rocket, thunderbolt, skyrocket, mustang, swoose goose and 58 more...
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Widow's walk
widow's peak, widow's weeds, black widow, merry widow, golf widow, grass widow, war widow, widowmaker, widow's mite, widow and orphan, widow-and-orphan ..., widow's chamber and 18 more...
Tweets
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hernesheir Name of a medical marijuana strain. Jan 15, 2010
john The Northrop P-61, a night fighter and the first U.S. military aircraft designed to use radar. More on Wikipedia. Dec 29, 2008