Why is a man a 'widower'?

Per Merriam-Webster:

Widow was wuduwe
Widower was wuduwa

Etymology: Middle English widewer, alteration of wedow widow, widower, from Old English wuduwa widower; akin to Old English wuduwe widow

Interesting. I thought maybe it was a rare English word where the masculine version was derived from the feminine.

That would be a widow-maker.

I’ve found the difference strange. I refer to myself as a widow.

@CyanoticWasp Someone who skates is a skater. Someone who bakes is a baker. Someone who runs is a runner.
If our language was consistent, someone who widows would be a widower.

@Sarcasm well, there you have it. Our language doesn’t follow such precise rules.

Which is why George Carlin’s question about “why do we drive on a parkway and park on a driveway?” is so apt.

It’s definitely one of the few words we have left that are specific to gender.

@mrentropy, I think you meant “when a man’s wife dies.”

@Sarcasm, and a mother would do what?

One of the few, @Jeruba?

It seems like we still have a good plenty:
mother / father
brother / sister
aunt / uncle
actress
waitress
aunt
suffragette (and other words ending in “ette”)
huntress (and other words ending in “ess”)
she / her
he / his

And that’s where I’m stopping for now, but I’m sure I could come up with others if I had a mind to put up to it.

@Jeruba My mom moths all the time. Consistency!

@Sarcasm Heh…. so what does a wanker do?

@stranger_in_a_strange_land I think I’ll just say “I’m widowed” if it comes up in conversation.

@Jeruba Oh. Yup. You are right. I typo’d :(

@Kayak8 Thanks for that. It’s a sad sign of the times when I’m checking Wiki and forgetting about the dictionary.

@mrentropy Did you get this question from Sleepless in Seattle? LOL

@GrumpyGram No. My wife was killed in a car accident in April and I was sitting around being depressed when it occurred to me that I was a widower. I never thought I’d be one, never wanted to be one, but here I am. Since I have odd thought processes in the best of times, I thought, much as the question goes, that a ‘widower’ sounds more like someone who makes widows, not someone who lost a wife.

It seems to me that ‘widow’ should probably be gender neutral.

@mrentropy I am so sorry for your loss. ((((hugs))))