trap-door spider

noun

1. any of several burrowing spiders, of the family Ctenizidae, that construct a tubular nest with a hinged lid.

trap-door spider

noun

1. any of various spiders of the family Ctenizidae that construct a silk-lined hole in the ground closed by a hinged door of earth and silk

Word History and Origins

Origin of trap-door spider¹

First recorded in 1820–30

Example Sentences

If the net-caster was a machine gun, then the trap-door spider is the IED of the rainforest.

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He even walked out on the desert a little way that afternoon, with Buddy clinging to his hand to pilot him to the wonderful nest of a trap-door spider.

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The same book tells why the trap-door spider usually builds on a slope.

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The female burrows in the epidermis much as the female trap-door spider burrows in turf in order to make a nest in which to rear her young.

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It is radically unlike any soil on the Atlantic coast—the soil for cañons and the rectangular watercourses, and for the trap-door spider.

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