Fw: "spidery" - Word of the Day from the OED

[K3 V iN Cummiskey]

does OED really need to take up 18 inches of my screen to describe spidery, these people need a life

--- On Wed, 9/3/08, oedwotd at oup.com <oedwotd at oup.com> wrote:

From: oedwotd at oup.com <oedwotd at oup.com>
Subject: "spidery" - Word of the Day from the OED
To: OEDWOTD-AMER-L at WEBBER.UK.OUP.COM
Date: Wednesday, September 3, 2008, 8:30 PM







OED Online Word of the Day
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spidery, a.
SECOND EDITION 1989   


(spadr )  [f. SPIDER n. + -Y.
  Cotgrave (1611) has ‘Araignier, spiderie’, but the word otherwise belongs to the 19th century.] 
    1. a. Like a spider in appearance or form. 
1837 New Monthly Mag. LI. 365 That grotesque race, the Sapajous,..are slender,..long in tail, and spidery in general appearance. 1859 LD. LYTTON Wanderer (ed. 2) 21 Spidery Saturn in his webs of fire. 1881 J. W. OGLE Harveian Orat. 93 That hideous spidery crustacean, the crab.
Comb. 1882 Garden 25 Mar. 194/3 A bright spidery-looking flower.
    b. fig. Entangling like a spider. 
1825 COLERIDGE Let. 21 Feb. (1971) V. 414 As we advance in years, the World, that spidery Witch, spins it's threads narrower and narrower, still closing in on us. 1875 M. COLLINS Sweet & Twenty III. II. vii. 19 Lest he should be picked up by the wily widow or spidery spinster.
    2. a. Of legs or arms: Resembling those of a spider; long and thin. 
c1845 DE QUINCEY Fatal Marksman Wks. 1859 XII. 228 The old woman, stretching her withered spidery arms after the flying girl. 1880 R. BROUGHTON Sec. Th. I. i, He is a..fragile young man, slender as any reed, and with legs even more spidery than Jane's. 1896 CROCKETT Cleg Kelly vi. 47 Delicate little keys with spidery legs.
    b. Suggestive of the appearance of a spider with long and thin legs. 
1862 H. AÏDÉ Carr of Carrl. II. 228 The marchesa wrote, with characteristic effusion, in her long spidery characters. 1879 STEVENSON Trav. Cevennes 82 A spidery cross on every hill-top. 1894 A. SPINNER Study in Colour 132 The writing was quite legible, although rather crooked and spidery in places.
    c. Like a spider-web in formation; suggestive of a cobweb or cobwebs.
  Not always clearly separable from prec. 
1860 Ecclesiologist XXI. 284 An ornate kind of German Late-Pointed, very spidery in detail. a1893 SYMONDS in H. F. Brown Biogr. (1895) I. ii. 53, I hauled some spidery black weed out of a pool. 1909 BOND & CAMM Roodlofts 172 The tracery is spidery.
    3. Suggestive of that of a spider, in respect of entanglement, cunning, etc. 
1843 LYTTON Last Bar. VI. i, I have of late narrowly and keenly watched that spidery web which ye call a Court. 1875 BESANT & RICE Harp & Cr. xviii, He had the spidery look as his flabby face shone through the panes.
    4. Of the nature of spiders. 
1871 M. E. BRADDON Lovels xi, There was a particular race of spiders, the biggest specimens of the spidery species it had ever been her horror to encounter.
    5. Full of or infested by spiders. 
1889 MARCHIONESS OF STAFFORD How I Spent my Twentieth Year 260 A gabled cottage..in reality rather uncomfortablestuffy and spidery. 1894 D. C. MURRAY Making of Novelist 15, I shall never forget the spidery black-painted galleries and staircases. 
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