About
The character 孀 is a phono-semantic compound. Its left side is the woman radical 女, which places it within the semantic domain of females. The right side is the character 霜, meaning frost, which provides the pronunciation "shuang". The character was coined to specifically mean a widow, a woman whose husband has died. It has few secondary or abstract meanings. The phonetic component 霜 may also subtly evoke the coldness or hardship associated with widowhood, though its main function is phonetic.