Dictionary

spidery en · ADJ

Pronunciation

• (Southern-England) audio
• /ˈspaɪ.dɚ.i/ (US)

Etymology

From spider + -y.

Meanings

1. Like a spider.
   • High up on the viaduct, and approached by a spidery staircase from the street, it looks down on Southwark Cathedral. 1948 March and April, “A Keypoint in an Intensive Service”, in Railway Magazine, page 115:
   • “En passant,” if nothing else, would have revealed to Joe, in this imitation of a better trick, the hand of Eugene. […] “Sometimes,” said Eskew, “I think that ’Gene Bantry is jest a leetle bit spiderier than he is lazy.[…]” 1905 October, Booth Tarkington, “‘Outer Darkness’”, in The Conquest of Canaan: A Novel, New York, N.Y.; London: Harper & Brothers Publishers, →OCLC, pages 128–129:
2. Characterized by many spindly extensions.
   • This shelf is deeply cut into by rivers, so that the line has to cross a series of spidery lattice-girder bridges. 1960 April 14, H. P. White, “The Railways of Sierra Leone”, in Railway Magazine, page 235:
   • The spidery construction looked like it would fall apart in a stiff breeze.
   • At one point, her spidery abstractions gave way to a series of abruptly syncopated hits, like a deranged allusion to the Thelonious Monk tune “Evidence.” 2015 June 18, Nate Chinen, “Review: Eric Revis Trio Lets the Music Lead the Way at the Jazz Gallery”, in The New York Times, archived from the original on 16 Jun 2022:
3. Suggestive of cobwebs; spiderweb-like.
4. Infested with or containing many spiders.
5. (figuratively) Cramped or illegible; especially when spiky.
   • 'I cannot make head or tail of it,' confessed Miss Barrowford, as the senseful fingers crossed and recrossed the scrawl, now following a vague spidery line, now drawn where no visible mark appeared to lead. 'Is there any meaning, do you think?' 1927, Ernest Bramah [pseudonym; Ernest Brammah Smith], Max Carrados Mysteries:

Forms

Deriveds

spideriness

Synonyms

spiderish · spideresque · spiderlike