What is "spider"

Spider \Spi"der\, n.[OE. spi[thorn]re, fr. AS. spinnan to spin; -- so named from spinning its web; cf. D. spin a spider, G. spinne, Sw. spindel. See Spin.]

1. (Zo["o]l.) Any one of numerous species of arachnids comprising the order Araneina. Spiders have the mandibles converted into poison fangs, or falcers. The abdomen is large and not segmented, with two or three pairs of spinnerets near the end, by means of which they spin threads of silk to form cocoons, or nests, to protect their eggs and young. Many species spin also complex webs to entrap the insects upon which they prey. The eyes are usually eight in number (rarely six), and are situated on the back of the cephalothorax. See Illust. under Araneina.

   Note: Spiders are divided into two principal groups: the Dipneumona, having two lungs: and the Tetrapneumona, having four lungs. See Mygale. The former group includes several tribes; as, the jumping spiders (see Saltigrad[ae]), the wolf spiders, or Citigrad[ae] (see under Wolf), the crab spiders, or Laterigrad[ae] (see under Crab), the garden, or geometric, spiders, or Orbitell[ae] (see under Geometrical, and Garden), and others. See Bird spider, under Bird, Grass spider, under Grass, House spider, under House, Silk spider, under Silk.

2. (Zo["o]l.) Any one of various other arachnids resembling the true spiders, especially certain mites, as the red spider (see under Red).

3. An iron pan with a long handle, used as a kitchen utensil in frying food. Originally, it had long legs, and was used over coals on the hearth.

4. A trevet to support pans or pots over a fire.

5. (Mach.) A skeleton, or frame, having radiating arms or members, often connected by crosspieces; as, a casting forming the hub and spokes to which the rim of a fly wheel or large gear is bolted; the body of a piston head; a frame for strengthening a core or mold for a casting, etc. Spider ant. (Zo["o]l.) Same as Solitary ant, under Solitary. Spider crab (Zo["o]l.), any one of numerous species of maioid crabs having a more or less triangular body and ten long legs. Some of the species grow to great size, as the great Japanese spider crab ( Macrocheira Kempferi), measuring sometimes more than fifteen feet across the legs when they are extended. Spider fly (Zo["o]l.), any one of numerous species of parasitic dipterous insects of the family Hippoboscid[ae]. They are mostly destitute of wings, and live among the feathers of birds and the hair of bats. Called also bird tick, and bat tick. Spider hunter (Zo["o]l.), any one of several species of East Indian sunbirds of the genus Arachnothera. Spider lines, filaments of a spider's web crossing the field of vision in optical instruments; -- used for determining the exact position of objects and making delicate measurements. Fine wires, silk fibers, or lines on glass similarly placed, are called spider lines. Spider mite. (Zo["o]l.)

   1. Any one of several species of parasitic mites of the genus Argas and allied genera. See Argas.

   2. Any one of numerous small mites injurious to plants.

      Spider monkey (Zo["o]l.), any one of numerous species of South American monkeys of the genus Ateles, having very long legs and a long prehensile tail.

      Spider orchis (Bot.), a European orchidaceous plant ( Ophrys aranifera), having flowers which resemble spiders.

      Spider shell (Zo["o]l.), any shell of the genus Pteroceras. See Pteroceras.

late 14c., spydyr, from earlier spiþre, spiþur, spiþer (14c.), from Old English spiðra, from Proto-Germanic *spin-thron- (cognate with Danish spinder), literally "the spinner," from *spen-wo- "to spin" (see spin (v.)) + formative or agential *-thro. The connection with the root is more transparent in other Germanic cognates (such as Middle Low German, Middle Dutch, Middle High German, German spinne, Dutch spin "spider").\n\nThe male is commonly much smaller than the female, and in impregnating the female runs great risk of being devoured. The difference in sizes is as if the human female should be some 60 or 70 feet tall.

[Century Dictionary]

n. 1 Any of various eight-legged, predatory arthropods, of the order ''Araneae'', most of which spin webs to catch prey. 2 (context Internet English) A program which follows links on the World Wide Web in order to gather information. 3 (context chiefly Australia and New Zealand English) A float (drink) made by mixing ice-cream and a soda or fizzy drink (such as lemonade). 4 (context slang English) A spindly person. 5 (context slang English) A man who persistently approaches or accosts a woman in a public social setting, particularly in a bar. 6 (context snooker billiards English) A stick with a convex arch-shaped notched head used to support the cue when the cue ball is out of reach at normal extension; a bridge. 7 (context cookware US UK chiefly historical and now dialectal English) A cast-iron frying pan with three legs, once common in open-hearth cookery. 8 (context cookware English) Implement for moving food in and out of hot oil for deep frying, with a circular metal mesh attached to a long handle. 9 A part of a crank, to which the chainrings are attached 10 (context slang English) heroin (street drug). 11 (context music English) Part of a resonator instrument that transmits string vibrations from the bridge to a resonator cone at multiple points. 12 A skeleton or frame with radiating arms or members, often connected by crosspieces, such as a casting forming the hub and spokes to which the rim of a fly wheel or large gear is bolted; the body of a piston head; or a frame for strengthening a core or mould for a casting. vb. (context Internet of a computer program English) to follow links on the World Wide Web in order to gather information.

1. n. predatory arachnid that usually has silk-spinning organs at the back end of the body; they spin silk to make cocoons for eggs or traps for prey

2. a computer program that prowls the internet looking for publicly accessible resources that can be added to a database; the database can then be searched with a search engine [syn: wanderer]

3. a skillet made of cast iron

A spider is a type of arthropod.

Spider or Spiders may also refer to:

The Spider is an American pulp-magazine hero of the 1930s and 1940s.

Spider is a type of Patience game. It is one of the more popular two-deck solitaire games.

"Alias the Spider" is a comic-book feature from the 1930s and 1940s Golden Age of Comic Books that appeared in Quality Comics' Crack Comics for nearly three years, starting with issue #1 in 1940. He was created by writer-artist Paul Gustavson.

The original, Golden Age version of the character is in public domain, but the rights to all subsequent versions are owned by DC Comics.

Spider is an illustrated literary magazine designed for children from 6 to 9 years old. Started in January 1994, the magazine is published in the United States by The Cricket Magazine Group, which is owned by the Carus Publishing Company. The headquarters of the magazine is in Chicago, Illinois. The magazine tells original short stories, poems, nonfiction articles, activities, games and illustrations from world famous authors. It also has art and writing contests in each issue and publishes work created by its readers.

The magazine is published every month, except for combined May–June, July–August, and November–December issues.

Spider were a new wave of British heavy metal (NWOBHM) band from Liverpool that formed in 1976.

The band, who were often compared to Status Quo, offered an upbeat sound, which was described as boogie rock. Spider released three albums in the 10 years they were together, titled Rock 'n' Roll Gypsies (1982) Rough Justice (1984) and Raise the Banner (For Rock 'n' Roll) (1986)

The band split in 1986.

Strathclyde Personal Interactive Development and Educational Resource (SPIDER) is a virtual learning environment used by the University of Strathclyde to provide an online platform for class material, support and more.

Spider is a sculpture by Louise Bourgeois. Executed in 1996 as an edition of six and cast in 1997; bronze with a silver nitrate patina, with the first of the edition being steel.

An example was acquired by the Denver Art Museum for its new addition in 2006. Other locations in permanent collections include the National Gallery of Art Sculpture Garden, Washington DC, and the Kemper Museum of Contemporary Art, Kansas City, Missouri.

Spider is a 2002 Canadian/British psychological thriller film produced and directed by David Cronenberg and based on the novel of the same name by Patrick McGrath, who also wrote the screenplay.

The film premiered at the 2002 Cannes Film Festival and enjoyed some media buzz; however, it was released in only a few cinemas at the year's end by distributor Sony Pictures Classics. Nonetheless, the film enjoyed much acclaim by critics and especially by Cronenberg enthusiasts. The film garnered a Best Director award at the Canadian Genie Awards. The stars of the film, Ralph Fiennes and particularly Miranda Richardson, received several awards for their work in the film.

Spider is a novel by the British novelist Patrick McGrath, originally published in the United States in 1990. Its eponymous character, birth name Dennis Cleg, is a recent arrival from a lunatic asylum to a halfway house in the East End of London—just a few streets away, by strange coincidence, from the very house where he grew up, and the scene of some barely visible but tremendous trauma which peeps out at the reader gradually from the fog of Spider's reminiscences.

As the story opens, Spider has just taken up residence in the halfway house, under the stern eye of Mrs. Wilkinson, along with a handful of others he calls "dead souls." He takes daily walks to the Thames, following the old canals and towpaths that run along the edge of his memories, under the shadow of the immense oil and gas tanks that dominate the industrial landscape. As he sits on a bench, rolling his own cigarettes, he begins to tell us the tale of his childhood, of his remote, emotionally brutal father and slight, quiet, protective mother. He is, or so he tells us, writing all this down in a notebook which he keeps hidden, variously, under a newspaper drawer-liner, under the damaged linoleum floor of his room, or up the chimney of a disused gas fire.

Like many of McGrath's narrators, Spider is unreliable, but like those of Edgar Allan Poe, he lures the reader onward deeper into his mental catacombs with his lyrical prose and extraordinary lucid moments. Spider was adapted as a film by David Cronenberg in 2002; the title role was played by Ralph Fiennes.

Category:Novels set in London Spider Spider Category:Fiction with unreliable narrators Category:Poseidon Press books

Spider written as SPIDER (written with a mirrored 'R') is a monthly magazine circulated in Pakistan by the DAWN group of newspapers, focusing on issues related to software/ hardware and Internet technologies. The magazine sported a tagline boasting it to be "Pakistan's Internet Magazine" till March 2005. Since most of the issues discussed in its leaves are mostly about information technology rather than just Internet, the tagline was removed. A symbol that dons its cover pronouncing its identity is that of a mouse with eight limbs and a blinking red sensor as an eye over a web engulfed in a yellow circle, mostly found at the top-right corner of the publication. __TOC__

Spider is a 2007 Australian black comedy short film directed by Nash Edgerton and written by David Michôd and Nash Edgerton. The film had its world premiere in competition at the Sydney Film Festival on 17 June 2007. After that the film compete at number of film festivals and later theatrically released with Edgerton's feature-film The Square.

Spider is a balloon-borne experiment designed to search for primordial gravity waves imprinted on the cosmic microwave background (CMB). Measuring the strength of this signal puts limits on inflationary theory.

The Spider instrument consists of six degree-resolution telescopes cooled to liquid Helium temperature (4 K) which observe at frequencies of 100 GHz, 150 GHz, and 280 GHz (corresponding to wavelengths of 3 mm, 2 mm, and 1.1 mm). Each telescope is coupled to a polarisation-sensitive transition-edge bolometer array cooled to 300 mK.

The first balloon flight of the experiment launched in January 2015 from McMurdo Station, Antarctica, with support from NASA's Columbia Scientific Balloon Facility. This Long Duration Balloon flight lasted for about 17 days, mapping about 10% of the full sky. Further flights planned for successive seasons enable upgrades and changes to the modular telescope, and ever-improving frequency coverage and depth.

The primary science goals include:

1. characterization of the curl-free component of the CMB polarization on the largest scales
2. searching for the signature of inflationary gravitational waves in the CMB polarization
3. characterization of the polarization properties of the emission from our own Milky Way Galaxy

Spider was an American rock band from New York that formed in 1977 and disbanded in 1984. They released two studio albums through Dreamland Records in the early 1980s, and scored a few moderate hit singles in the United States. Two songs from their 1981 album Between the Lines - "Change" and " Better Be Good to Me" - were hits for John Waite and Tina Turner, respectively.

Holly Knight went on to become a successful songwriter for various artists and later formed Device. Anton Fig and Jim Lowell toured with Link Wray and appeared on his live album Live At The Paradiso, recorded in 1979. Fig became a session drummer for several different bands throughout the rest of the 1980s, and later went on to play in Paul Shaffer's band on Late Night with David Letterman.

A spider is a type of skimmer used in Asian and Dutch cooking in the form of a wide shallow wire-mesh basket with a long handle, used for removing hot food from a liquid or skimming foam off when making broths. The name is derived from the wire pattern, which looks like a spider's web.

Unlike sieves or strainers, which have fine mesh screens for straining away liquids as food is retrieved, the spider can be used as a strainer for larger pieces of food. However, most often it is used as a skimming tool to add or remove foods from hot liquids such as water or oil. Spiders may be somewhat flat and round or small round spoon-like utensils shaped into the form of an open basket. They may also be referred to as sieves, spoon sieves, spoon skimmers, or basket skimmers.

The Spider is a steel spinning roller coaster made by Maurer Söhne of Germany. The ride is located at the Lagoon Amusement Park in Farmington, Utah. The Spider was installed at Lagoon in 2003, but shut down on opening day due to a wheel malfunction. The ride re-opened one week later and has been running regularly since.

The Spider features spinning ride vehicles that can seat two sets of two passengers, facing in opposite directions. The vehicles feature the name of "The Spider and the Fly" for that was what this coaster was going to be named. During development of this ride, the named was shortened to "The Spider" because of unknown reasons. The spinning vehicles were already painted before the name change, thus has the developing name.

In the 2016 season, Spider was repainted and the cement below the coaster was replaced. The Spiders track was repainted red and black as opposed to respectively, pink and purple.

Spider is the nickname of:

• Edward Dawson Atkinson (1891-?), British First World War flying ace
• Woody Brown (surfer) (1912-2008), American surfer and watercraft designer
• Albert Buick (1875-1948), Scottish footballer
• Matthew Burton (born 1970), retired Australian rules footballer
• Panagiotis Fasoulas (born 1963), Greek politician and former basketball player
• Dallas Green (baseball) (born 1934), American Major League Baseball pitcher, manager and executive
• Rachid Harkouk (born 1956), Anglo-Algerian former footballer
• Spider Johnson (1907–1966), American football player
• Billy Kelly (boxer) (1932–2010), boxer from Northern Ireland
• Jim Kelly (boxer) (1912–?), boxer from Northern Ireland
• Carl "Spider" Lockhart (1943–1986), American National Football League player
• William L. Nyland (born 1946), retired US Marine Corps four-star general
• Spider Sabich (1945-1976), American alpine ski racer
• Anderson Silva (born 1975), Brazilian mixed martial arts fighter
• Spider Stacy (born 1958), English musician and member of The Pogues
• Darius Watts (born 1981), American former National Football League and arena football player
• Travis Webb (1910-1990). American race car driver
• Mark Webster (darts player) (born 1983), Welsh darts player

Spiders ( order Araneae) are air-breathing arthropods that have eight legs and chelicerae with fangs that inject venom. They are the largest order of arachnids and rank seventh in total species diversity among all other orders of organisms. Spiders are found worldwide on every continent except for Antarctica, and have become established in nearly every habitat with the exceptions of air and sea colonization. , at least 45,700 spider species, and 114 families have been recorded by taxonomists. However, there has been dissension within the scientific community as to how all these families should be classified, as evidenced by the over 20 different classifications that have been proposed since 1900.

Anatomically, spiders differ from other arthropods in that the usual body segments are fused into two tagmata, the cephalothorax and abdomen, and joined by a small, cylindrical pedicel. Unlike insects, spiders do not have antennae. In all except the most primitive group, the Mesothelae, spiders have the most centralized nervous systems of all arthropods, as all their ganglia are fused into one mass in the cephalothorax. Unlike most arthropods, spiders have no extensor muscles in their limbs and instead extend them by hydraulic pressure.

Their abdomens bear appendages that have been modified into spinnerets that extrude silk from up to six types of glands. Spider webs vary widely in size, shape and the amount of sticky thread used. It now appears that the spiral orb web may be one of the earliest forms, and spiders that produce tangled cobwebs are more abundant and diverse than orb-web spiders. Spider-like arachnids with silk-producing spigots appeared in the Devonian period about , but these animals apparently lacked spinnerets. True spiders have been found in Carboniferous rocks from , and are very similar to the most primitive surviving suborder, the Mesothelae. The main groups of modern spiders, Mygalomorphae and Araneomorphae, first appeared in the Triassic period, before .

A herbivorous species, Bagheera kiplingi, was described in 2008, but all other known species are predators, mostly preying on insects and on other spiders, although a few large species also take birds and lizards. Spiders use a wide range of strategies to capture prey: trapping it in sticky webs, lassoing it with sticky bolas, mimicking the prey to avoid detection, or running it down. Most detect prey mainly by sensing vibrations, but the active hunters have acute vision, and hunters of the genus Portia show signs of intelligence in their choice of tactics and ability to develop new ones. Spiders' guts are too narrow to take solids, and they liquefy their food by flooding it with digestive enzymes and grinding it with the bases of their pedipalps, as they do not have true jaws.

Male spiders identify themselves by a variety of complex courtship rituals to avoid being eaten by the females. Males of most species survive a few matings, limited mainly by their short life spans. Females weave silk egg-cases, each of which may contain hundreds of eggs. Females of many species care for their young, for example by carrying them around or by sharing food with them. A minority of species are social, building communal webs that may house anywhere from a few to 50,000 individuals. Social behavior ranges from precarious toleration, as in the widow spiders, to co-operative hunting and food-sharing. Although most spiders live for at most two years, tarantulas and other mygalomorph spiders can live up to 25 years in captivity.

While the venom of a few species is dangerous to humans, scientists are now researching the use of spider venom in medicine and as non-polluting pesticides. Spider silk provides a combination of lightness, strength and elasticity that is superior to that of synthetic materials, and spider silk genes have been inserted into mammals and plants to see if these can be used as silk factories. As a result of their wide range of behaviors, spiders have become common symbols in art and mythology symbolizing various combinations of patience, cruelty and creative powers. An abnormal fear of spiders is called arachnophobia.

The locomotive to become known as "Spider" in its service on the Marrawah Tramway, Tasmania was originally a small Baldwin-built steam tram constructed about 1890 for usage on the 4 ft in gauge in Bendigo street tramway, Victoria, Australia.

In 1911 the Marrawah Tramway Company purchased the locomotive for the Marrawah Tramway, and, when the loco had to be re-gauged from 4 ft in to 3 ft 6 in gauge, the width of the firebox didn't allow the frames to be brought in sufficiently to make room for wheel flanges of normal width, so the latter were only inches wide. When the engine first entered service it was easily distinguishable by the presence of an open-sided roof running the full length of the locomotive. On 5 February 1913 the loco hauled the first official load on the Marrawah Tramway (although timber getters J. S. Lee & Sons had likely done small timber haulage before). On that day the train set out from the 17-mile, where it loaded tons of cheese and 2 tons of wool and hides from the Marrawah area; from there the train went on towards Smithton. This system continued for the next two years; each Wednesday the train left Smithton at 9 a.m., whilst at the same time the horse driver with the cargo left Marrawah. This system continued to work till the Public Works Department's takeover in 1914. When Spider passed into ownership of the Public Works Department in 1914, the locomotive was the only one that the PWD owned at the time and was considered by Mr Ford (manager of the tramway) as "our No. 1 engine", apparently meaning it in the numerical sense and in the qualitative sense of which Spider was considered the best engine the PWD owned until the arrival of " Big Ben" in 1919.

In January 1917 Spider was taken by road from Smithton to Myalla and then railed to the TGR workshops in Launceston for a general overhaul, in the course of which the original bar frames (which were cracked) were replaced with plate frames. Another clear addition was that the former open roof was removed and a sheet metal cab with a galvanised iron roof was fitted; this would have been a great improvement for the drivers. After this the locomotive weighed in at tons. making it the second lightest of the four PWD engines. By the 1920s Spider's original boiler was getting badly worn out, and in April 1923 the Emu Bay Railway Company agreed to replace her boiler, and this appears to have been completed in November of that year.

In 1929 the Marrawah tramway, along with all the PWD's locomotives and rolling stock, passed into ownership of the TGR, who continued to operate them but gradually started the dispersing of the small engines and employing larger C-class 2-6-0 locomotives.

Head-on collision

On 10 February 1937 Spider crashed into one of these larger locomotives. On that day C-class 4 with driver Davidson and fireman Simon departed Smithton with a heavy load for Marrawah, C 4 after passing the 4 & 6 mile marks was given permission from Smithton to perseed but was experiencing heavy going en route, relieving officer Speers at Smithton radiod Spider, which had hauled an earlier train to head back to the 19 mile to assist C4. When C4 reached the 19 mile it phoned Smithton, but, rather than being informed to wait for Spider, Mr Speers at Smithton was otherwise engaged, so Miss Geale at Smithton, with no knowledge of the agreement, gave C 4 permission to proceed. Spider, still intending to meet C4 at the 19-mile mark, met head on with C4 at the 20-mile mark in a violent collision. C4 only received damage to the cowcatcher, buffer and vacuum brake pipe, but Spider, being the smaller engine, with no momentum from a load behind, was badly damaged, with the head-on collision tearing the boiler from supportings and lifting it up. The water tank ripped from its mountings, the underside of the smokebox being lifted up on the boiler was crunched in, and the whistle and injector steam pipes were ripped from the steam dome. The local fitter suggested the engine "was and is overdue for a thorough repair", and the loco was sent to the Launceston workshops to receive a thorough overhaul. And during this period it was tried to get Big Ben to do Spider's work, but eventually an engine of Jaegers, presumably the Manning Wardle 0-4-0 ST Stanley was used instead for a short period; by 1938 "Spider was likely back in service."

A second collision

On 8 August 1941 Spider was involved in another collision, but this time with the passenger railmotor DP 3. On that day Spider was heading out from Smithton with a load and DP 3 from Marrawah with passengers, It was intended for both engines to cross at the 19-mile mark. Driver Young on the railmotor was unable to call for clearance from Redpa and "ran the gauntlet" to the next block post to call for clearance from Redpa. Fireman Goodwin on Spider rang Smithton control from the 14-mile mark after a difficult trip. Porter O' Donnell at Smithton gave Spider clearance to the 17 mile, but in the following conversation about likely loading at various sidings neglected to tell Goodwin that he had cleared DP 3 to cross him at the 17 mile instead of the 19 mile. From here both engines were lost to the Smithton station master until a call came through that there was "a mess up the track with Spider and motor ahead at the 18 mile". Damage to both locos was extensive, but both held the rails and were towed to the 17-mile siding. The railmotors passengers got to Smithton clinging to a gang motor.

Spider survived to be the last of the PWD's original four locomotives remaining at Smithton until, on 4 April 1949, Spider was purchased by the Britton Brothers for usage on their logging tramway at Brittons Swamp, Tasmania, which was a branch of the Marrawah Tramway. Spider was moved on the back of a lorry to Brittons Swamp because by that time most of the tramway up to where the Brittons' tramway branched off was torn up. Spider was put into service hauling loads of timber to the mill assisting the aging Marshall traction engine loco the Brittons already owned, although it was not very successful, but even so it worked up until 1954, when the Brittons obtained their "Diesel No. 1", and Spider was abandoned beside the track at the Britton Brothers electric mill.

The locomotive's underframe and wheels were later separated from the locomotive and used as a log bogie on the tramway, and the boiler and cab left until in 1973, when the boiler was removed and fitted to the frames and wheels of " Six Wheeler" to create a display locomotive at the Marrawah Hall, which was dumped in the Marrawah tip in 1984.

Category:Steam locomotives of Tasmania