spider

Definition

Any of various eight-legged, predatory arthropods, of the order Araneae, most of which spin webs to catch prey.

Etymology

From Middle English spiþre, spydyr, spider, spiþer, from Old English spīþra (“spider”), from Proto-West Germanic *spinþrijō, from Proto-Germanic *spinnaną (“to spin”). Mostly displaced attercop (“spider, unpleasant person”), now a dialectal term. Compare typologically Proto-Slavic *mězgyrь (whence Russian мизги́рь (mizgírʹ)) (akin to Latvian mežģīt), Turkish örümcek (akin to örmek).

Example Sentences

• "Little Miss Muffet, She sat on a tuffet, Eating of curds and whey; There came a little spider, Who sat down beside her, And frighted Miss Muffet away."
• "Crawler-based search engines have three major elements. The first is the spider, also called the crawler, which visits a web page, reads it, and then follows links to other pages within the site."
• "2002, Katharine Gasparini, Cranberry and vanilla ice cream spider, recipe in Cool Food, page 339."

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