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ENGLISH · A WORD WITH POSSIBILITIES

spider.

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

6 characters2 syllables approx.English language

Meaning & usage

noun/ˈspaɪ̯də/Received-Pronunciation/ˈspaɪ̯dɚ/General-American[ˈspʌɪ̯ɾə(ɹ)]Canada, Eastern, Inland-Northern-American, New-England
  1. Any of various eight-legged, predatory arthropods, of the order Araneae, most of which spin webs to catch prey.

    countable · uncountable
  2. A program which follows links on the World Wide Web in order to gather information.

    Internet · countable · uncountable
  3. A float (drink) made by mixing ice-cream and a soda or fizzy drink (such as lemonade).

    Australia · New-Zealand · countable · uncountable
  4. An alcoholic drink made with brandy and lemonade or ginger beer.

    Australia · New-Zealand · countable · obsolete · uncountable
  5. A spindly person.

    countable · slang · uncountable
  6. A man who persistently approaches or accosts a woman in a public social setting, particularly in a bar.

    countable · slang · uncountable
  7. 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.

    countable · uncountable
  8. A cast-iron frying pan with three legs, once common in open-hearth cookery.

    UK · US · countable · dialectal · historical · uncountable
  9. 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

    countable · uncountable
  10. A part of a crank, to which the chainrings are attached.

    countable · uncountable
  11. Heroin.

    slang · uncountable
  12. Part of a resonator instrument that transmits string vibrations from the bridge to a resonator cone at multiple points.

    countable · uncountable
  13. A skeleton or frame with radiating arms or members, often connected by crosspieces, such as a casting forming the hub and spokes to which the rim of a fly wheel or large gear is bolted; the body of a piston head; or a frame for strengthening a core or mould for a casting.

    countable · uncountable
  14. A soft-hackle fly.

    England · countable · uncountable
  15. The network of wires separating the areas of a dartboard.

    countable · uncountable
  16. A spider graph or spider tree.

    countable · uncountable
  17. A type of light phaeton.

    countable · obsolete · uncountable
  18. A support for a camera tripod, preventing it from sliding.

    countable · uncountable
  19. A competition in which several participants are spread evenly around the edges of the green, who all make one bowl towards the central jack at the same time; the winner being the person whose bowl ends up closest to the jack.

    countable · uncountable
  20. A bit for turning fasteners with 8-pointed heads.

    countable · uncountable
Where this word comes from

Inherited from Middle English spithre, spider, 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).

verb/ˈspaɪ̯də/Received-Pronunciation/ˈspaɪ̯dɚ/General-American[ˈspʌɪ̯ɾə(ɹ)]Canada, Eastern, Inland-Northern-American, New-England
  1. To move like a spider.

    intransitive
  2. To cover a surface like a cobweb.

    intransitive
  3. To follow links on the World Wide Web in order to gather information.

    Internet
    The online dictionary is regularly spidered by search engines.
Where this word comes from

Inherited from Middle English spithre, spider, 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).

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Definitions, grammatical labels, IPA, etymology and examples: Wiktionary contributors, extracted by Kaikki / Wiktextract. Adapted under CC BY-SA 4.0. Selected fields and authored examples are shown; third-party quotations and audio are omitted. See contributor history.

Last enriched 2026-09-10. Definitions are in English. Romanizations are shown when supplied by the source; syllable estimates are omitted for unsupported scripts.