web

English dictionary entry

Meanings

noun
  1. The silken structure which a spider builds using silk secreted from the spinnerets at the caudal tip of its abdomen; a spiderweb.
  2. Any interconnected set of persons, places, or things, which, when diagrammed, resembles a spider's web.
  3. The part of a baseball mitt between the forefinger and thumb, the webbing.
  4. A latticed or woven structure.
  5. A tall tale with more complexity than a myth or legend.
  6. A plot or scheme.
  7. The interconnection between flanges in structural members, increasing the effective lever arm and so the load capacity of the member.
  8. The thinner vertical section of a railway rail between the top (head) and bottom (foot) of the rail.
  9. A fold of tissue connecting the toes of certain birds, or of other animals.
  10. The series of barbs implanted on each side of the shaft of a feather, whether stiff and united together by barbules, as in ordinary feathers, or soft and separate, as in downy feathers.
  11. A continuous strip of material carried by rollers during processing.
  12. A long sheet of paper which is fed from a roll into a printing press, as opposed to individual sheets of paper.
name
  1. Alternative letter-case form of Web: the World Wide Web.
verb
  1. To construct or form a web.
  2. To cover with a web or network.
  3. To ensnare or entangle.
  4. To provide with a web.
  5. To weave.
name
  1. The World Wide Web.

Pronunciation

/wɛb/ en-us-web.ogg

Word forms

web webs the web webbing webbed

Etymology

Etymology tree Proto-Indo-European *webʰ-der. Proto-Germanic *webaną Proto-Germanic *wabją Old English webb Middle English web English web From Middle English web, webbe, from Old English webb, from Proto-West Germanic *wabi, from Proto-Germanic *wabją (“web”), from Proto-Germanic *webaną (“to weave”), from Proto-Indo-European *webʰ- (“to braid, weave”). Cognates Cognate with Scots wab (“web”), North Frisian wääb (“web”), Saterland Frisian Wäb (“web”), West Frisian and Dutch web (“web”), Danish væv (“web”), Faroese vevur (“web”), Icelandic vefur (“web”), Norwegian Bokmål and Norwegian Nynorsk vev (“web”), Swedish väv (“web”); also Cornish goghi (“wasps”), Irish foich, foiche, puch (“wasp”), Welsh gwchi (“drone”), Latin vespa (“wasp”), Ancient Greek ὑφή (huphḗ, “web”), ὑφαίνω (huphaínō, “to weave”) (whence Greek ανυφαίνω (anyfaíno), υφαίνω (yfaíno, “to weave”)), Albanian vej (“to weave”), Latvian lapsene (“wasp”), Lithuanian vapsvà (“wasp”), Old Prussian wobse (“wasp”), Belarusian аса́ (asá, “wasp”), Bulgarian, Macedonian, Russian, and Ukrainian оса́ (osá, “wasp”), Czech vosa (“wasp”), Polish, Slovak, and Slovene osa (“wasp”), Serbo-Croatian о̀са, òsa (“wasp”), Armenian մոզ (moz, “a kind of fly that bites horses and cattle”), Northern Kurdish moz (“hornet; wasp”), Persian بافتن (bâftan, “to weave”), Tocharian A wäp- (“to weave”), Tocharian B wāp- (“to weave”), Sanskrit उभ्नाति (ubhnāti, “to hurt, kill; to cover; fill”).

This entry uses open data from Wiktionary (CC BY-SA/GFDL). Word forms are used for search and are not indexed as separate pages.