gold star wife

English dictionary entry

Meanings

noun
  1. The widow of a member of the United States armed forces who was killed in action.

Pronunciation

/ˌɡəʊld stɑː ˈwaɪf/ LL-Q1860 (eng)-Vealhurl-gold star wife.wav /ˌɡoʊld stɑɹ ˈwaɪf/

Word forms

gold star wife gold star wives

Etymology

From gold star (“(attributively) relative of a United States soldier when the latter has been killed in action”) + wife. Gold star refers to stars of that colour traditionally shown on service flags displayed by families of members of the U.S. armed forces.

Related words

This entry uses open data from Wiktionary (CC BY-SA/GFDL). Word forms are used for search and are not indexed as separate pages.