Etymologically
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spider

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Pronunciation

  • IPA: /ˈspaɪ̯də/, /ˈspaɪ̯dɚ/[1]

Etymology

It is Middle English spithre, spyder, inherited from Old English spīþra, earlier *spinþra,[2][3][4] from Proto-Germanic *spinþrō, literally “spinner”, from the source of spin,[2][3][5] from PIE Proto-Indo-European *(s)pen- (“to draw, stretch, spin”).[3] The connection is clearer in Dutch spin and German Spinne.[3][6] The loss of -n- before -th- is regular in Old English, as in goose and tooth, and -th- later became -d-, as in murder.[3]

Earliest recorded meaning

1340, as spithre, in the Ayenbite of Inwyt;[2][7] spyder is from 1440, in the Promptorium Parvulorum.[2]

Semantic evolution

Etymonline notes that it was not the common word in Old or Middle English, which used loppe (Chaucer's usual word), attercop, poison-head, and araine, from Latin aranea.[3] It is used as a term of abuse for persons from 1568.[7] A frying pan with legs is a spider from 1807, a spider-crab from 1853 and a fishing fly from 1857.[7] In literature the spider is a figure of cunning, skill and industry as well as of venomous predation.[3] Spidery is from 1825, in Coleridge's letters.[2]

Timeline

  • 1340 – spithre.[2][7]
  • 1440 – spyder.[2]
  • 1568 – a term of abuse.[7]
  • 1807 – a long-handled frying pan.[7]
  • 1825 – spidery.[2]

Modern meaning

Noun

  1. An arachnid with eight legs and a body in two parts, many kinds of which spin webs to catch insects.
  2. Something resembling a spider, such as a frying pan with legs or a rest for a snooker cue.
  3. (computing) A program that searches the World Wide Web; a crawler.

Word family

  • spiderish
  • spiderlike
  • spiderless

References

  1. ^ Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
  2. ^ a b c d e f g h Barnhart, Robert K. (1988), The Barnhart Dictionary of Etymology
  3. ^ a b c d e f g Harper, Douglas. Online Etymology Dictionary, https://www.etymonline.com
  4. ^ Hoad, T. F., ed. (1986), The Concise Oxford Dictionary of English Etymology, Oxford: Clarendon Press
  5. ^ Merriam-Webster Unabridged Dictionary (2024), online ed., Springfield, Mass.: Merriam-Webster
  6. ^ Shorter Oxford English Dictionary on Historical Principles (2002), 5th ed., ed. William R. Trumble and Angus Stevenson, Oxford: Oxford University Press
  7. ^ a b c d e f Simpson, J. A.; Weiner, E. S. C., eds. (1989), The Oxford English Dictionary, 2nd ed., Oxford: Clarendon Press