What is "merry widows"

Usage examples of "merry widows".

When he ruined my good clothes and stopped me from visiting the merry widows, did he know what lay ahead on the nature trail?

James had five principal mistresses, including a Countess and a Duchess, and seven secondary mistresses, typically Merry Widows of Important Dead Men.

From here on always use Merry Widows, even if a sweet little darling tells you not to bother.

Sometimes they had only to touch brush to wall before they were swept into the interior where they might find a loud party dancing under a spinning mirror ball, a hellfire club full of men in wasp-waist tailcoats and women in leather Merry Widows, a children's birthday party, or a New Year's Eve gala with champagne-quaffing celebrants waiting for the ball to drop from a tower.

But then the very thought of those old ladies naked or, worse still, prancing around in merry widows or negligees made him faintly ill, and he drove the image from his mind.

In the box were: half a can of dynamite caps, an old revolver, a package of Melachrino cigarettes, three contraptions known as Merry Widows, a small flask of peach brandy, a paper knife shaped like a dagger, four bundles of letters from four different girls, sixteen lipsticks pilfered from dance partners, a box containing mementos of current loves—.