cobweb
Language: English
Part of speech: noun
Pronunciation: ipa: /ˈkɒbwɛb/
Forms: form: cobwebs
form: copweb
Etymology: From Middle English copweb, coppeweb. Compare Middle Dutch kopwebbe, German Low German Kobbenwebbe (Westphalian). By surface analysis, cop (“spider”, obsolete) + web.
Senses: examples: text: […] there was stretched across his gateway a circular cobweb of the largest kind and quite entire. This looked so ominous that I actually turned aside and went in the back way.
ref: 1865, Henry David Thoreau, chapter X, in Cape Cod, Provincetown, page 200:
text: A cobweb, night-spun, hung in an insidious circle from branch to branch, facing her. Early as it was, its first victim struggled in its gummy meshes.
ref: 1907, Barbara Baynton, edited by Sally Krimmer and Alan Lawson, Human Toll (Portable Australian Authors: Barbara Baynton), St Lucia: University of Queensland Press, published 1980, page 286:
glosses: A spiderweb, or the remains of one, especially an asymmetrical one that is woven with an irregular pattern of threads.
glosses: One of its filaments; gossamer.
examples: text: The dust and cobwebs of that uncivil age.
ref: a. 1587 (date written), Phillip Sidney [i.e., Philip Sidney], An Apologie for Poetrie. […], London: […] [James Roberts] for Henry Olney, […], published 1595, →OCLC; republished as Edward Arber, editor, An Apologie for Poetrie (English Reprints), London: [Alexander Murray & Son], 1 April 1868, →OCLC:
text: Once the cobwebs of a lack-lustre first half were blown away, Spurs were irresistible and Arsenal were simply unable to cope with the power of Mousa Dembele in midfield and the creation and running of Christian Eriksen and Dele Alli - combined with the inevitable goalscoring prowess of Kane.
ref: 2018 February 10, Phil McNulty, “Tottenham Hotspur 1 - 0 Arsenal”, in BBC:
glosses: Something thin and unsubstantial, or flimsy and worthless; valueless remainder.
examples: text: Entangled in the cobwebs of the schools.
ref: 1782–1785, William Cowper, “(please specify the page)”, in The Task, a Poem, […], London: […] J[oseph] Johnson; […], →OCLC:
glosses: An intricate plot to catch the unwary.
glosses: A web page that either has not been updated for a long time, or that is rarely visited.
glosses: The European spotted flycatcher, Muscicapa striata.
examples: text: I washed my face, trying to get the cobwebs of hard sex and an alcohol-induced sleep out of my head
ref: 2008, Burlan Eugene Ellison, The Ebony Coffin: A Jim Kirkwood Novel, page 98:
text: "Hey," she said. "You know what? After you call the hospital, why don't you go for a run? It'll help clear out the cobwebs, get rid of some of that tension. Then go back, take a nice hot shower, and―"
"There's no shower here. Remember?"
"Oh, right. A nice hot bath, then. Even better. And eat breakfast, Caelum. You need to remember to eat."
ref: 2008, Wally Lamb, The Hour I First Believed, Ch.5, at p.116
text: Veyz mir, meaning something like “Oh . . . my!,” was a Yiddish expression that I had not employed for a long, long time. Yet in the cobwebs of my memory, that expression was still lurking inside. How interesting!
ref: 2012, Stanley M. Bierman, Napoleon's Penis: Plus Other Engaging and Outrageous Tales, page 16:
glosses: fuzzy inexact memories.
Hypernyms: web
Derived terms: cobwebbed
cobwebbery
cobwebbing
cobweb brush
cobwebby
cobweb chart
cobweblike
cobweb model
cobweb site
cobweb spider
cobweb theory
dwarf cobweb weaver spider