cobweb
pronunciation
How to pronounce cobweb in British English:
UK [ˈkɒbweb]
How to pronounce cobweb in American English:
US [ˈkɑbweb]
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- Noun:
- filaments from a cobweb
- a dense elaborate spider web that is more efficient than the orb web
Word Origin
- cobweb
- cobweb: [14] A cobweb was originally literally a web woven by a cop, a Middle English word for ‘spider’. It was short for attercop ‘spider’, a compound of Old English origin which had largely died out by the 17th century. This seems to have meant literally ‘poison head’, from Old English ātōr ‘poison’ and coppe ‘head, top’ (a possible relative of English cob). It was revived by J R R Tolkien in The Hobbit 1937.
- cobweb (n.)
- early 14c., coppewebbe; the first element is Old English -coppe, in atorcoppe "spider," literally "poison-head" (see attercop). Spelling with -b- is from 16c., perhaps from cob. Cob as a stand-alone for "a spider" was an old word nearly dead even in dialects when J.R.R. Tolkien used it in "The Hobbit" (1937).
Example
- 1. The cobweb pretends to catch dewdrops and catches flies .
- 2. A banker showed me two photos not long ago . One was the subway map of a large foreign city which is as dense as a cobweb and the other was the subway map of beijing which is quite sparse .
- 3. The cobweb pretends to catch dewdrops and catch flies .
- 4. Those lazy fellows have not even sweep the cobweb away .
- 5. The spider can catch insects by cobweb .