I don't believe that there is any other definition for widow, other than a woman whose husband is dead, and who has not remarried. I think it wasn't too uncommon for women to NOT wish others to know they were divorced, and using the term widow might have made the divorce more palliative.... maybe, when the census taker came 'round she knew she wasn't married, and she wasn't exactly single, so perhaps she just said widowed, for lack of anything better. S.. I believe I read on these boards a while ago that the term "widow" was used for other than a woman who's husband was dead. My reason for asking is my great grandmother, Emma Cox Miller, appears in the 1888-89 Chester City Directory as "widow of E.P.", yet I know my great grandfather, Ellis Pusey Miller was alive in November of 1890. They were in the middle of a divorce in 1888/89 and I wondered if this was a term that a woman would use if she was separated or felt she was "deserted" by her husband.