1650 Painting of Olimpia Maidalchini in widow’s clothes by Diego Velázquez. Maidalchini was the sister-in-law of Pope Innocent X and reputed to have had significant influence over papal appointments and decisions. Portrait of a middle-aged woman clothed in black and with a widow’s cap that forms a peak on her forehead.
20 August 2021
A widow’s peak is a triangular point of hair in the middle of a person’s forehead. There was once a folk belief that such a peak of hair was a sign of early widowhood, and long before the word peak became associated with mountains, it simply meant a point. In present-day use, widow’s peak is not limited to widows or even to women. Men can have widow’s peaks too.
Before we get to the full phrase widow’s peak, let’s take a look at its component words
The word widow is inherited from Proto-Germanic and has cognates in many Germanic languages. Its Old English predecessor is widuwe. The Old English noun is feminine, but there was also a rarer masculine form corresponding to the Present-Day widower. The usual association of widowhood with women, and the fact that widow is the unmarked (i.e., basic) form while widower is marked (i.e., differentiated), is a result of patriarchal societies typically classifying women based on their relationship with men, while not doing so with men.
An example of the Old English widuwe can be found in a homily by Ælfric of Eynsham, De Duodecim Abusivis (Regarding the Twelve Abuses) in a passage about the proper role of just king:
He sceal beon bewerigend wydewena and steopbearna, and stala alecgan, and forliger gewitnian, and þa arleasan adræfan of his earde mid ealle, wiccecræft alecgan and wigelunga ne gyman.
(He must be a defender of widows & stepchildren & put an end to theft & punish adultery & banish wicked ones from his land and at the same time abolish all witchcraft and pay no heed to soothsaying.)
Peak, the other half of widow’s peak, is a fifteenth-century variation on pike, which originally meant point—the weapon takes its name from its stabbing point. Pike has cognates in many Germanic languages, but a similar word is also found in many Romance languages, e.g. French pic. Classical Latin has picus (woodpecker), and the Germanic and Romance words probably were interchanged and reinforced one another multiple times through the centuries. So, peak’s origin seems to be a combination of Romance and Germanic roots.
We can see an Old English use of pic in a translation of Bili’s life of St. Machutus (or St. Malo):
Se halga machu wæs þa ingangende on þæs dracan scræfe, & his stæfes pic on þon scræfe gesette.
(The holy Machutus was then visiting in this dragon’s cave, & set his staff’s pike [i.e., point] in the cave.)
Bili’s Latin reads cuspidem baculi sui.
Pike or peak could be applied to all sorts of pointed objects, and by the beginning of the sixteenth century it was being used to refer to the point on the front of a headdress or widow’s hood. In his 1509 translation of Sebastian Brandt’s Ship of Fools, Alexander Barclay uses the word this way in a passage commenting on new fashions in clothing:
And ye Jentyl wymen whome this lewde vice doth blynde
Lased on the backe: your peakes set a loft.
Come to my Shyp. forget ye nat behynde.
Your Sadel on the tayle: if you lyst to sit soft.
Do on your Deck Slut: if ye purpos to come oft.
I mean your Copyntanke: And if it wyl do no goode.
To kepe you from the rayne. ye shall haue a foles hoode.(And you gentle women whom this lewd vice does blinde
Laced in the back, your peaks set aloft.
Come to my ship, do not leave behind
Your saddle on the tail, if you desire to sit softly.
Put on your covering, slut, if you aim to come often.
I mean your high-crowned hat, and if it will do no good
To keep you from the rain, you shall have a fool’s hood.)
From the style of pointed headcovering often worn by widows, peak came to refer to the point of hair on some people’s foreheads. And by the 1680s, the phrase widow’s peak was in use. From a museum catalog’s description of a shell, where writer Nehemiah Grew uses the phrase to describe various objects in the collection:
The MAILED SAILER. Nauticlus Laminatus. I meet with it no where. Both within, and especially without, of the colour of the richest Pearl. It is composed of a considerable number of Plates, as if in Armor. Yet the Plates continuous; furrow'd along the middle, and produced with a blunt Angle, almost like a Widows-Peak. From under each of which, emergeth a kind of little Tongue, like that of a Shoo-Buckle.
And from a description of a Native-American article of clothing:
An APRON for the Pudenda of a Woman. A 1/4 of a yard deep, and shaped like a Widows Peak. Hath two transverse Labels, with several small Tassel'd Strings, to tie it about her middle; and a great one hanging down before. Made of Rushes, and other Plants.
Since then, widow’s peak has lost the cultural association with widowhood, but the phrase remains in fossilized form.
Sources:
Ælfric. “De Duodecim Abusivis.” in Mary Clayton, ed. Two Ælfric Texts: The Twelve Abuses and the Vices and Virtues. Cambridge: D.S. Brewer, 2013, 129. JSTOR. Oxford, Bodleian Library, Hatton MS 115.
Barclay, Alexander, trans. The Ship of Fools (1509), vol. 1. Edinburgh: William Paterson, 1874, 38. Google Books.
Grew, Nehemiah. Musæum Regalis Societatis: or, a Catalogue and Description of the Natural and Artificial Rarities Belonging to the Royal Society and Preserved at Gresham College. London: Thomas Malthus, 1685, 137, 374. Early English Books Online (EEBO).
Oxford English Dictionary, third edition, June 2017, modified June 2021, s.v. widow, n.; September 2005, modified June 2021, peak, n.2 and adj.; March 2006, modified June 2021, pike, n.1.
Yerkes, David, ed. The Old English Life of Machutus. Toronto: U of Toronto Press, 1984, 41. HathiTrust Digital Archive.
Photo credit: Painting by Diego Velázquez, 1650. Unknown photographer. Photograph is in the public domain image as a mechanical reproduction of a work in the public domain.