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Glite Dictionary
dowager's hump

dowager's hump

1 9.3
A rounded curve in the upper spine that makes the back hunch, often in older women
  • noun
  • /ˈdaʊədʒərz hʌmp/
  • Specialized
translation icon : joroba de viuda

Examples

  • The doctor was a beak-nosed little guy with an enormous dowager's hump under his white lab coat.

    Fiction book (1998)

  • It sounded now like a woman in her eighties, quavering under a dowager's hump.

    Fiction book (1992)

  • As she aged, her dowager's hump made her posture appear increasingly hunched.

  • Many elderly women develop a dowager's hump due to osteoporosis affecting their spine.

  • Exercises to strengthen the core can help reduce the appearance of a dowager's hump.

Synonyms

kyphosis
vsdowager's hump
  • Specialized
1 9.6

A strong forward bend of the upper spine that makes the back rounded

is the same issue limited to the upper spine in older women from osteoporosis
humpback
vsdowager's hump
  • Archaic
1 7.5

A curve in the upper spine that makes the back bend and stick out

is a similar upper spine curvature mainly in older women due to osteoporosis

Surface Forms

dowager's hump singular
dowager's humps plural

Morphology

dowager's + hump

The phrase literally denotes 'a hump belonging to a dowager' — if a learner knows 'dowager' (an elderly/high-status/older woman) and 'hump' (a rounded protuberance), they can infer it refers to a hunched upper back of an older woman. The possessive noun+noun composition is transparent and follows common cross-linguistic patterns, so the core meaning is directly derivable from the parts.

Etymology

Dowager's hump comes from dowager, a word for an 'older widow', and hump, meaning a rounded bump on the back. People noticed that some older women developed a curved upper spine from weak bones, so the phrase now means 'a hunched upper back' often seen in older women.