spicy 
2. Having the qualities of spice ; flavored with 
spice: fragrant; aromatic: as, spicy plants. 
The ypict/ nut-brown ule. Milton, L' Allegro, 1. 100. 
I ndrr southern skies exalt their sails, 
Led by new stais, and borne by spicy gales ! 
Pope, Windsor Forest, 1. 392. 
3. Highly flavored ; pungent ; keen ; pointed ; 
racy: as, a spicy letter or debate. [Colloq.] 
Your hint about letter-writing for the papers is not a 
bad one. . . . Apolitical surmise, a spicy bit of scandal, a 
sensation trial, wound up with a few moral reflections 
upon how much better we do the same sort of thing at 
home. Lever, A Bent in a Cloud, p. f>8. 
4. Stylish; showy; smart in appearance: as, 
a .i/iicy garment ; to look spicy. [Slang.] 
" Bless'd if there isn't Snipe dismounting at the gate ! " 
he exclaimed Joyfully; "there's a drummer holding his 
nag. What a spicy chestnut it is ! " 
Wliilte Melville, White Rose, I. xiii. 
=Syn. 3. Racy, Spicy. See racy. 
spider (spl'der), . [An altered form of "gpitiier, 
<. ME. spither, dat. spitfire, < AS. *snither, orig. 
*spinther, with formative -ther of the agent, < 
xpiinian, spin: see spin. Cf. spinner^, a spider; 
D. spin = OHG. spinnd, MHG. G. spinne, a spi- 
der, lit. 'spinner.' For other E. names, see 
attercop, cop 2 , toft 1 , ?op 3 .] 1. An arthropod of 
the order Araneee, Araneina, or Araneida (the 
old Linnean genus Aranea), of the class Arachni- 
da, of which there are many families, hundreds 
of genera, and thousands of species, found all 
over the world. Though popularly considered insects, 
spiders are not true Tnsecta, since they have eight instead 
of only six legs, normally seven-jointed, and no wings arc 
5830 
2. Some other arachnidan, resembling or mis- 
taken for a spider; a spider-mite. See rcd- 
xjiiilc/-. 3. A spider-crab ; a sea-spider. 4. A 
cooking-utensil having legs or feet to keep it 
from contact with the coals: named from a 
fancied resemblance to the insect the ordi- 
nary frying-pan is, however, sometimes errone- 
ously termed a spider. ( ) A kind of deep frying-pan, 
commonly with three feet. 
Some people like the sound of bubbling in a boiling 
pot, or the fizzing of a trying-spider. 
C. D. Warner, Backlog Studies, p. 10. 
Hash was warmed up in the spider. 
J. T. Trmvbridye, Coupon Bonds, p. 113. 
(6) A trivet ; a low tripod used to support a dish, or the 
like, in front of a fire. 
5. In much. : (a) A skeleton of radiating spokes, 
asarag-wheel. (6) The internal frame or skel- 
eton of a gear-wheel, for instance, on which 
a cogged rim may be bolted, shrunk, or cast, 
(c) The solid interior part of a piston, to 
which the packing is attached, and to whose 
axis the piston-rod is secured. E. H. Knight. 
6. Naut., an iron outrigger to keep a block 
clear of the ship's side. Geometrical spider. See 
geometric. Grass-spider, one of many different spiders, 
as species of Ayalena, which spin webs on the grass, such 
as may be seen spangled with dew in the morning in 
meadows. Round- web spider, one of many orbitelarian 
spiders, as species of Epeira (see, also, cut under cross- 
TOider). Spider couching. See couching^, 5. Trap- 
door spider. See Cteniza, Stygalidtt, trap-door, and cut 
under Araneida. (See also bird-spider, crab-spider, dicing- 
spider, garden-spider, house-spider, jumpiny-spider, sea- 
spider, sillc-spider, tcater-spider, wolf-spider.) 
developed. They are dimerosomatous that is, have the spider-ant (spi'der-ant), n. A solitary ant of 
body divided into two prin- the family Mutillidie: so called from the spi- 
^^IT^t^T", der-like aspect of the females. 
thorax, or he^jd and' chest ""-"^ aspect of the females, 
together, and the abdomen. Spider-band (spl der-band), n. Naut., an iron 
hoop round a mast to which the lower ends of 
which is generally tumid 
Female of Latrixitctiis Mactans, 
enlarged one quarter, 
a, under side of abdomen. 
U* the futtock-shrouds are secured; also, a hoop 
antennaTare deveioped as round a mast provided with belaying-pins. See 
such, but there are rapto- cut under futtock-shrouds. 
rial organs called falces, spider-bug (spi'der-bug), n. A long-legged 
that'te have a^nstaM^int " e t er pt erous insect of the family Emesidee, 
folding' down on the next Emesa longipes, somewhat resembling a spider, 
like the blade of a pocket- See cut under stick-bug. [U. S.] 
knife. (See cut under faix.) spider-catcher (spi'der-kach^er), . A bird 
In those species which are t ,^ t Catche8 
spiders. Specifi- 
cally (a) The wall- 
creeper, Tichodro- 
ma muraria. See 
cut under Ticho- 
droma. (b) pi. The 
genus Arachnothe- 
ra in a broad sense, 
numerous species 
of which inhabit 
the Indo-Halayan 
region. They are 
small creeper-like 
birds with long 
bills, and belong to 
the family Nectari- 
ini'i:i- Also called 
spider-eaters and 
spider-hunters. 
usually eight eyes, sometimes six, rarely four, in one genus spider-Cells (spi' der-selz), H. pi. Neuroglia 
(Nops) only two. The abdomen is always distinct, ordi- :;]] 
narily globose, never segmented, and provided with two .. . . -,,, . 
or more pairs of spinnerets. (See cut under arachnidium.) Spluer-COb (spl aer-kot), n. 
The characteristic habit of spiders is to spin webs to catch weft, 
heir prey, or to make a nest for themselves, or for both spider-crab (spi'der-krab), H. 
by the arachnidium, or arachnidial glands, and conducted 
by ducts to the several, usually six, arachnidial mammilla!, 
which open on papillie at br near the end of the abdomen, 
and through which the viscid material is spun out in fine 
gossamer threads. Gossamer or spider-silk serves not only 
to construct the webs, but also to let the spider drop 
speedily from one place to another, to throw a " flying 
bridge " across an interval, or even to enable some species 
to "fly" that is, be buoyed up in the air and wafted a 
spider-stitch 
spider-flower (spi'der-flou"er), n. 1. A planl 
of the former genus I.nxitiinlra of I he Melasto- 
iiiin-cif, now included in Tilinin-liiiiti. The spe- 
cies are elegant hothouse shrubs from Brazil, 
bearing large purple flowers. 2. A plant of 
the gi'ims I'/riniK; especially C. njiimtxii (C. /uni- 
UCHX), a native of tropical America, escaped 
from gardens in the southern United States. 
The stipules are spinous, the flowers large, rose-purple to 
white, with long stamens and style, suggesting the name. 
See cut under Ulcoinr. 
spider-fly (spi'der-fli), n. A parasitic pupipa- 
rous dipterous insect, as a bee-louse, bat-louse, 
bird-louse, bat-fly, sheep-tick, etc. They are of 
three families, Braulidtf, Sycteribiuliv, and Iiipi>nbf>xi-ittu . 
Some of them, especially the wingless forms, as Kycteribia, 
closely resemble spiders in superficial appearance. See 
cut under sheep-tick. 
spider-helmet (spi'der-hel'met), . A name 
given to the skeleton head-pieces sometimes 
worn. See secret, n., 9. 
spider-hunter (spi'der-hun"ter), . Same as 
xjiiili:r-cutclur (6). 
spider-legs (spi'der-legz), H. pi. In gilding, ir- 
regular fractures sometimes occurring when 
gold-leaf is fitted over a molding having deep 
depressions. 
spider-line (spi'der-lin), . One of the threads 
of a spider's web substituted for wires in mi- 
crometer-scales intended for delicate astro- 
nomical observations. 
The transit of the star is observed over spider linet 
stretched in the field, while a second observer reads the 
altitude of this star from the divided circle. 
The Century, XXXVI. 008. 
spider-mite (spi'der-mlt), n. A parasitic mite 
or acarid of the family Gamasidse. 
spider-monkey (spi'der-mung'ki), n. A tropi- 
cal American platyrrhine monkey, of the family 
Cebidse, subfamily Cebinee, and genera Attics 
and Brachyteles ; a kind of sajou or sapajou, 
' species which are 
poisonous the falces are 
traversed by the duct of a 
venom-gland. Some spi- 
ders are by far the most 
venomous animals in ex- 
istence in proportion to 
their size : that the bite of 
a spider can be fatal to man 
(and there are authentic 
instances of this) implies 
a venom vastly more pow- 
erful than that of the most 
poisonous snakes. (See 
katipo and Latrodectus.) Spiders breathe by means of 
pulmonary sacs, or lung-sacs, nearly always in connection 
with trachete or spiracles, whence they are called pulmo- 
tracheal; these sacs are two or four in number, whence a 
division of spiders into dipneumonous and tetrapneumo- 
nous araneids. (See Dipneumones, 2, Tetrapneumones.) 
Most spiders belong to the former division. They have 
Spider-catcher *,Arachnothtra mafna}. 
bame as sptder- 
-u 
great distance. It has occasionally been woven artificially 
into a textile fabric, and is a well-known domestic appli- 
cation for stanching blood. (See cut under silk-spider.) 
Some spiders are sedentary, others vagabond ; the former 
are called orbitelarian, retitelarian, tubitelarian, i 
j dorscttcnsis). 
. , etc., ac- 
cording to the character of their webs. Spiders move by 
running in various directions, or by leaping ; whence the 
vagabond species have been described as rectigrade, lateri- 
grade, citigrade, saltir/rade, etc. They lay numerous eggs, 
usually inclosed in a case or cocoon. The male is com- 
monly much smaller than the female, and in impregnating 
the female runs great risk of being devoured. The differ- 
ence in size is as if the human female should be some 60 or 
70 feet tall. (See cut under silk-spider.) Spiders are car- Oxurhuiicha 
mvorous and highly predatory. Some of the largest kinds J 
are able to kill small birds, whence the name bird-spiders Spiaer-OlVer 
of some of the great hairy mygalids. (See cut under bird- (spi der-di*ver), (. The little grebe, or dab- 
spider. ) A few are aquatic, as the water-spiders of the ge- chick. [Local, British. ] 
nus Argyroneta (which see, with cut). Wolf-spiders or 
tarantulas belong to the family Lycosidse; but the name 
tarantula is more frequently applied to the Mygalida (or 
TheraphosidsB). The common garden-spider or diadem- 
spider of Europe is Epeira diademata; that of the United 
States is E. cophinaria (or riparia). See Araneida, and cuts 
A spider-like 
crab, or sea-spider, with long slender legs and 
comparatively 
small triangular 
body. The name is 
given to many such 
crabs, of different 
families, but espe- 
cially to the maioids, 
or crabs of the fam- 
ily Maiidee, such as 
Maia squinado, the 
common spinousspi- 
der-crab of Great 
Britain, and species 
of Libinia, Inachus, 
etc. The giant Jap- 
anese spider-crab, 
Macrochira kaemp- 
feri, is the largest 
crustacean. See cuts 
under Leptopodia, 
Lithodes, Maia, and A Spider-crab (/<><* 
male. 
'ter), . Same as spider- 
catclicr (b). 
I obtained an interesting bird, a green species of Spi- 
der-eater. H. 0. Forbes, Eastern Archipelago, p. 233. 
. . , 
under chelicera, cross-spider, pulmonary, and tarantula. 
My brain, more busy than the labouring spider, 
Weaves tedious snares to trap mine enemies 
Shak., 2 Hen. VI., Hi. 1. 338. 
spidered (spi'derd), . [< spider + -ed?.] In- 
tested with spiders; cobwebbed. [Rare.] 
Content can visit the poor spidered i 
Wolcot (Peter Pindar), p. 
room. 
39. (Dames.) 
A Spider-monkey {Ateles fanisctts). 
likened to a spider by reason of the very long 
and slim limbs, and long prehensile tail. They are 
large slender-bodied monkeys of great agility and of arbo- 
real habits, with the thumb absent or imperfect. Brachy- 
teles (or Eriodes) arachnoides is a Brazilian spider-monkey 
called the miriki. A teles paniscus is the large black spider- 
monkey, or coiata; A. melanochir is the black-handed spi- 
der-monkey; and many more species or varieties of this 
genus have been named. One of the spider-monkeys, .4. 
veUerosui, is among the most northerly of American mon- 
keys, extending into Mexico to Orizaba and Oajaca. The 
flesh of some species is used for food, and the pelts have 
a commercial value. See also cut under Eriodes. 
spider-net (spi'der-net), n. Netting by spider- 
stitch. 
spider-orchis (spi'der-6r"kis), H. A European 
orchid, 0/iliri/s aranifera. It has an erect stem from 
9 to 18 inches high, with a few leaves near the base, and a 
loose spike of few small flowers with broad dull-brown lip 
and parts so shaped and arranged as somewhat to resemble 
a spider. 
spider-shell (spi'der-shel), n. The shell of a 
gastropod of the family Strombidee and genus 
Pteroceras; a scorpion-shell, having the outer lip 
expanded into a number of spines. The species 
inhabit the Indian and tropical Pacific oceans. 
See cut under scorpion-shell. 
spider-Stitch (spi'der-stich), n. A stitch in 
darned netting and in guipure, by which open 
spaces are partly filled with threads carried di- 
agonally and parallel to each other, the effect 
of several squares together being that of a 
spider-web. 
