spider
Meanings
noun
- Any of various eight-legged, predatory arthropods, of the order Araneae, most of which spin webs to catch prey.
- A program which follows links on the World Wide Web in order to gather information.
- A float (drink) made by mixing ice-cream and a soda or fizzy drink (such as lemonade).
- An alcoholic drink made with brandy and lemonade or ginger beer.
- A spindly person.
- A man who persistently approaches or accosts a woman in a public social setting, particularly in a bar.
- A stick with a convex arch-shaped notched head used to support the cue when the cue ball is out of reach at normal extension.
- A cast-iron frying pan with three legs, once common in open-hearth cookery.
- Implement for moving food in and out of hot oil for deep frying, with a circular metal mesh attached to a long handle; a spider skimmer
- A part of a crank, to which the chainrings are attached.
- Heroin.
- Part of a resonator instrument that transmits string vibrations from the bridge to a resonator cone at multiple points.
verb
- To move like a spider.
- To cover a surface like a cobweb.
- To follow links on the World Wide Web in order to gather information.
name
- The 29th sura (chapter) of the Qur'an.
Pronunciation
Word forms
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).
Synonyms
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