Widowed means your husband or wife has died. It works in two ways. As an adjective it describes the person now living in that state: "her widowed father", "she has been widowed for ten years". As a passive verb it names the event: "she was widowed at thirty" means her husband died when she was thirty. Notice that English has no active version people use — you would not say "cancer widowed her" in ordinary speech, though writers do it for effect. The word covers both men and women, which is useful, because the nouns widow and widower split by sex and can feel blunt. It is also the polite, quiet way to say it: forms ask you to tick single / married / widowed / divorced, and at a funeral someone will say "she was widowed young" rather than "her husband died". One important limit — it only applies if the couple were married. If an unmarried partner dies, English simply has no equal word, and people have to say "her partner died". Note also that being widowed and then marrying again means you are no longer described as widowed.