cobweb
Americannoun
-
cobwebs
plural
-
a web spun by a spider to entrap its prey.
-
a single thread spun by a spider.
-
something resembling a cobweb; anything finespun, flimsy, or insubstantial.
-
a network of plot or intrigue; an insidious snare.
-
cobwebs, confusion, indistinctness, or lack of order.
I'm so tired my head is full of cobwebs.
verb (used with object)
-
to cover with or as with cobwebs.
Spiders cobwebbed the cellar.
-
to confuse or muddle.
Drunkenness cobwebbed his mind.
noun
-
a web spun by certain spiders, esp those of the family Theridiidae, often found in the corners of disused rooms
-
a single thread of such a web
-
something like a cobweb, as in its flimsiness or ability to trap
Usage
What does cobweb mean? Cobweb is another word for a spider web. But cobweb is most commonly used to refer to the kind of dusty old spider webs that hang in the corners of places that haven’t been used or cleaned in a long time, like attics and abandoned houses. For that reason, cobweb is often used in expressions like clean out the cobwebs, meaning to do something to clear your mind or make it function normally again, perhaps after a period of inactivity or confusion. Cobweb can also be used as a verb, meaning to cover in cobwebs, as in No one had entered the study for years, and spiders had cobwebbed the entire bookcase. Example: The abandoned house was dusty and full of cobwebs.
Other Word Forms
Derived Forms
Inflected Forms
Nouns
Etymology
Origin of cobweb
1275–1325; Middle English coppeweb, derivative of Old English -coppe spider (in ātorcoppe poison spider); cognate with Middle Dutch koppe; see web
Explanation
A cobweb is the net of sticky threads that a spider weaves to catch insects. You can also call a cobweb a spider's web. A cobweb is any spider's web, although some people use it to specify the dense, tangled type of web that certain spiders weave, or to mean a dusty old web, like the ones you might see in your grandparents' attic. Cobweb can also describe some intricate or complicated things: "She got lost in the cobweb of unfamiliar subway lines in the city." It comes from the Old English coppeweb, from the now-obsolete coppe, "spider."
Example Sentences
Examples are provided to illustrate real-world usage of words in context. Any opinions expressed do not reflect the views of Dictionary.com.
See Examples For:
Why ask someone else to climb a stepladder to reach a cobweb?
From MarketWatch ● Oct. 5, 2026
Make a homemade spider toss game that transforms your living room floor into a huge cobweb.
From Salon ● Oct. 30, 2025
L.A. was once wetlands fed by the cobweb streams and marshes of the L.A.
From Los Angeles Times ● Jun. 29, 2021
There were beamed ceilings and wood floors, a dining room with a fireplace and, yes, a cobweb or two.
From New York Times ● Sep. 7, 2017
Before the bear could move, a rider’s net hissed through the air, and instantly Iorek was enveloped in steel-strong cobweb.
From "The Amber Spyglass" by Philip Pullman
That was once the HBO way, after all: taking a chance on new visions, instead of blowing the cobwebs off old ones.
From Salon ● Aug. 27, 2026
"And when we added the methyl groups back to the genes, they turned off again. So, these compounds aren't cobwebs -- they're anchors."
From Science Daily ● Jan. 5, 2026
She plans to sweep away the cobwebs and inject warmth and life into a farm mired in portentous dialogue and unmentionable secrets.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Dec. 12, 2025
The collection had been tucked under a pile of old newspapers and cobwebs in the attic of their family home, according to a press release from Heritage Auctions.
From Los Angeles Times ● Nov. 21, 2025
The cobwebs still clung to the rigging of the model boats.
From "Rebecca" by Daphne du Maurier
Brown’s cobwebbed mitts are gone and QB Jalen Hurts is spreading the gospel of a “shared mission.”
From The Wall Street Journal ● Sep. 8, 2026
We wring our hands like maiden aunts as they mosey blithely into danger: What could possibly go wrong in this cobwebbed basement/cabin in the woods/polygamist doomsday cult?
From New York Times ● May 25, 2023
“I am leashed it looks like, manacled; cobwebbed, that’s closer,” she says.
From Slate ● Aug. 9, 2018
The pulped peppers return to Avery Island and are aged for three years in stacked oak barrels towering in a pungent, cobwebbed warehouse before salt and vinegar is added in huge vats.
From The Guardian ● Mar. 27, 2018
One morning he’d awakened, and the ceiling he opened his eyes to was different: smooth and white and peaceful, instead of swirled and shadowed and cobwebbed.
From "The Strangers" by Margaret Peterson Haddix
Many a foreign line will also be flying them, cobwebbing the steadily shrinking globe with faster routes.
From Time Magazine Archive
With rich detail he told readers about one Pierre Grantaire who made a good living by raising and selling spiders for the spurious cobwebbing of wine bottles.
From Time Magazine Archive
There is still the cobwebbing music from beyond and now also a musty cardboard stench in the alley and the frequent whiff of garbage.
From "How It Went Down" by Kekla Magoon
The inevitable thin lines of mist are already cobwebbing the horizons; but there is a good breeze abroad to-day and the clouds are not resting so quietly in the niches as usual.
From A Midsummer Drive Through the Pyrenees by Edwin Asa Dix
When she had watched him tramp up the muddy slope from the bank to the street, Alexander lifted her chin and tossed her head, as if to shake away some cobwebbing thought from the brain.
From A Pagan of the Hills by Charles Neville Buck
Random Word
Spin the wheel and learn a new word!
Get a wordDefinitions and idiom definitions from Dictionary.com Unabridged, based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2023
Idioms from The American Heritage® Idioms Dictionary copyright © 2002, 2001, 1995 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company.
