COBWEB • DICTIONARY ONE.COM • Definition of Cobweb

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/kˈɑbwˌɛb/ Listen

noun

Cobweb n.

The network spread by a spider to catch its prey.

A snare of insidious meshes designed to catch the ignorant and unwary. "I can not but lament thy splendid wit Entangled in the cobwebs of the schools."

That which is thin and unsubstantial, or flimsy and worthless; rubbish. "The dust and cobwebs of that uncivil age."

(Zool.) The European spotted flycatcher.

Cobweb lawn, a fine linen, mentioned in 1640 as being in pieces of fifteen yards. "Such a proud piece of cobweb lawn."

Cobweb micrometer, a micrometer in which threads of cobweb are substituted for wires.

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Etymology of 'Cobweb'

Collaborative International Dictionary of English 0.48

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"Cobweb" Quotes from Famous Books

... a peculiar, unfeminine sound. I went away. My accursed Petersburg mood came back, and all my dreams were crushed and crumpled up like leaves by the heat. I felt I was alone again and there was no nearness between us. I was no more to her than that cobweb to that palm-tree, which hangs on it by chance and which will be torn off and carried away by the wind. I walked about the square where the band was playing, went into the Casino; there I looked at overdressed and heavily perfumed women, ...

— The Lady with the Dog and Other Stories • Anton Chekhov

... shuddered. It was Boolba's idea—nobody but Boolba would have thought of it. Every garment was of red, blood red, a red which seemed to fill the room with harsh sound. Stockings of finest silk, shoes of russian leather, cobweb underwear—but all of the same hideous hue. In Russia the word "red" is also the word "beautiful." In a language in which so many delicate shades of meaning can be expressed, this word serves a double purpose, doing duty for that which, in the eyes of civilized ...

— The Book of All-Power • Edgar Wallace

... yes; the spiders Cobweb[46], out of which great flyes breake and in which the little are hangd: the Tarriers snaphance[47], limetwiggs, weavers shuttle & blankets in which fooles & wrangling coxcombes are tossd. Doe I know't now ...

— A Collection of Old English Plays, Vol. II • Various

... Joan looked out upon these hungering faces with innocent, untroubled eyes, and then humbly and gently she brought out that immortal answer which brushed the formidable snare away as it had been but a cobweb: ...

— Personal Recollections of Joan of Arc Volume 2 • Mark Twain

... weary of barking," answered Temperance, laying smooth a piece of cobweb lawn. "I think I'll bite, one of these days. Deary me, but there are widows of divers sorts! If ever there were what Paul calls 'a widow indeed,' it is my Lady Lettice; and she doesn't make a screen of it, as Faith does, against all the east winds that blow. Well, ...

— It Might Have Been - The Story of the Gunpowder Plot • Emily Sarah Holt

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