Other forms: spiders
A spider is a small animal with eight legs that makes webs. A spider's web, afraid of spiders, a house spider.
It is not an insect: eight legs, two body parts and no antennae, where insects have six legs and three parts. Silk is stronger than steel by weight. Most spiders are harmless to people and eat a great many pests. Note that the word comes from the verb to spin, so a spider is a spinner.
1nounspiderA small eight-legged animal that spins webs.
“There was a huge spider in the bath, and nobody dared to catch it.”
spider is an animal.
Old English spithra comes from the Germanic verb meaning to spin. A spider is literally a spinner.
Proto-Indo-European
*(s)penh₁-
Proto-Germanic
*spinnaną — to spin
Proto-West Germanic
*spinþrijō
Old English
spīþra — spider
Middle English
spiþre
English, today
spider
Built from
Middle English spiþre, spydyr, spider, spiþer, 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 mězgyrь (whence мизги́рь) (akin to mežģīt), örümcek (akin to örmek).
Etymology from Wiktionary, CC BY-SA