grass widow

grass-widow的词性：
n.（名词）

1. A woman who is divorced or separated from her husband.
被遗弃的女人：离婚或与其丈夫分离的妇女

2. A woman whose husband is temporarily absent.
其丈夫暂时不在的妇女

3. An abandoned mistress.
被遗弃的情妇

4. The mother of an illegitimate child.
私生子的母亲

grass-widow的词源：

5. [Perhaps in allusion to a bed of grass or hay]
[可能暗指草床或干草床]

grass-widow的注释：

6. The term grass widow cries out for explanation as to what grass means and how grass widow came to have its varied though related senses. Grass probably refers to a bed of grass or hay as opposed to a real bed. This association would help explain the earliest recorded sense of the word (1528), “an unmarried woman who has lived with one or more men,” as well as the related senses “an abandoned mistress” and “the mother of an illegitimate child.” Later on, after the sense of grass had been obscured, people may have interpreted grass as equivalent to the figurative use of pasture, as in out to pasture. Hence grass widow could have developed the senses “a divorced or separated wife” or “a wife whose husband is temporarily absent.”
词语grass window 需要解释， 如grass 表示什么， grass window 怎样变得具有多种但彼此相关的含义。 Grass 可能意指相对于真正的床的草床或干草床。这种联系可以帮助解释该词最早被记录的意义（1528年），“一个和一个或更多的男人住在一起的未婚女人，”以及相关的意义“被抛弃的情妇”和“私生子的母亲。”渐渐地，当grass 的含义已经变得模糊以后， 人们可能把grass 解释为和 pasture 的比喻用法相等同， 如在out to pasture 中那样。 这样grass window 能产生出“离婚或分居的妻子”或“丈夫暂时不在的妻子”的意义