[spahy-der] 
| 1. | any of numerous predaceous arachnids of the order Araneae, most of which spin webs that serve as nests and as traps for prey. |
| 2. | (loosely) any of various other arachnids resembling or suggesting these. |
| 3. | any of various things resembling or suggesting a spider. |
| 4. | a frying pan, originally one with legs or feet. |
| 5. | a trivet or tripod, as for supporting a pot or pan on a hearth. |
| 6. | Machinery.
|
| 7. | a computer program that automatically retrieves Web pages for use by search engines. |
| 8. | an evil person who entraps or lures others by wiles. |
| 9. | a device attached to a cultivator, for pulverizing the soil. |
| fry·ing pan (frī'ĭng) n. A shallow, long-handled pan used for frying food. Also called skillet; also called regionally fry pan, spider. The terms frying pan and skillet are now virtually interchangeable, but there was a time when they were so regional as to be distinct dialect markers. Frying pan and the shortened version fry pan were once New England terms; frying pan is now in general use, as is the less common fry pan, now heard in the Atlantic states, the South, and the West, as well as New England. Skillet seems to have been confined to the Midland section of the country, including the Upper South. Its use is still concentrated there, but it is no longer used in that area alone, probably because of the national marketing of skillet dinner mixes. The term spider, originally denoting a type of frying pan that had long legs to hold it up over the coals, spread from New England westward to the Upper Northern states and down the coast to the South Atlantic states. It is still well known in both these regions, although it is now considered old-fashioned. See Note at andiron. |
| spi·der (spī'dər) n.
[Middle English spither, from Old English spīthra; see (s)pen- in Indo-European roots.] |
spider spi·der (spī'dər)
n.
Any of numerous arachnids of the order Araneae, having a body divided into a cephalothorax bearing eight legs, two poison fangs, and two feelers and an unsegmented abdomen bearing several spinnerets that produce the silk used to make nests, cocoons, or webs for trapping insects.
An arterial spider.
spider World-Wide Web
(Or "robot", "crawler") A program that automatically explores the World-Wide Web by retrieving a document and recursively retrieving some or all the documents that are referenced in it. This is in contrast with a normal web browser operated by a human that doesn't automatically follow links other than inline images and URL redirection.
The algorithm used to pick which references to follow strongly depends on the program's purpose. Index-building spiders usually retrieve a significant proportion of the references. The other extreme is spiders that try to validate the references in a set of documents; these usually do not retrieve any of the links apart from redirections.
The standard for robot exclusion is designed to avoid some problems with spiders.
Early examples were Lycos and WebCrawler.
Home.
(2001-04-30)
Spider
The trust of the hypocrite is compared to the spider's web or house (Job 8:14). It is said of the wicked by Isaiah that they "weave the spider's web" (59:5), i.e., their works and designs are, like the spider's web, vain and useless. The Hebrew word here used is _'akkabish_, "a swift weaver." In Prov. 30:28 a different Hebrew word (semamith) is used. It is rendered in the Vulgate by stellio, and in the Revised Version by "lizard." It may, however, represent the spider, of which there are, it is said, about seven hundred species in Palestine.
dər