spidery

[ spahy-duh-ree ]

/ ˈspaɪ də ri /

adjective

like a spider or a spider's web.

full of spiders.

Nearby words

Origin of spidery

First recorded in 1830–40; spider + -y¹

Dictionary.com Unabridged Based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2019

Examples from the Web for spidery

Soon Stilts would be stepping his spidery legs over me to face off with Frank.
‘Tracing the Blue Light’: Read Chapter 1 of Eileen Cronin’s ‘Mermaid’|Eileen Cronin|April 8, 2014|DAILY BEAST
Around the edges in her own spidery scrawl she would ask how I was.
She Taught Me to Cook—and Called Me a Klutz|Sandra McElwaine|August 6, 2009|DAILY BEAST
Here is a large pile of spectacles, a spidery mass of rusted wire-frames and dusty lenses.
My Visit To Hell|Christopher Buckley|January 30, 2009|DAILY BEAST
So did the spidery bridge that swings the ferry across the Old Harbour's mouth.
Essays in Rebellion|Henry W. Nevinson

My underpinning is good, too; I'm not one of these fellows with spidery legs and a barrel-chest.
The Valley of the Giants|Peter B. Kyne
The others heard, but went on somnolently feeding with spidery movements of their lean arms.
The Rescue|Joseph Conrad
It splashed like a liquid flame over men and metal and twisted the towers and buttresses into spidery tendrils of glowing thread.
The Peacemaker|Alfred Coppel
He sprang among the wires with a spidery sort of agility, caught one, pulled and hung upon it with, all his weight.
The Best Psychic Stories|Various

British Dictionary definitions for spidery

spidery

/ (ˈspaɪdərɪ) /

adjective

thin and angular like a spider's legsspidery handwriting

Collins English Dictionary - Complete & Unabridged 2012 Digital Edition © William Collins Sons & Co. Ltd. 1979, 1986 © HarperCollins Publishers 1998, 2000, 2003, 2005, 2006, 2007, 2009, 2012

Word Origin and History for spidery

spidery

adj.

1825, from spider + -y (2).