Webbed

ppl. a. [f. WEB sb. + -ED².]

  1.  Furnished with a web or connecting membrane; esp. of the feet of certain birds.

1664.  Power, Exp. Philos., I. 5. The Common Fly … her wings look like a Sea-fan with black thick ribs or fibers, dispers’d and branch’d through them, which are webb’d between with a thin membrane or film, like a slice of Muscovy-glasse.

1678.  Ray, Willughby’s Ornith., III. III. 322. Such [birds] as have all four toes web’d together.

1773.  Pennant, Genera of Birds, p. xi. The toes of birds that swim are either plain,… or pinnated,… or entirely webbed or palmated.

1816.  Tuckey, Narr. Exped. R. Zaire, ii. (1818), 42. Three toes full webbed, the fourth toe … quite free.

1851.  Woodward, Mollusca, 71. Arms (except the ventral pair), webbed high up.

1859.  Darwin, Orig. Spec., vi. (1873), 142. What can be plainer than that the webbed feet of ducks and geese are formed for swimming?

  b.  Path. Having a ‘web’ as a congenital malformation. See WEB sb. 8 b.

1862.  E. J. Chance, Bodily Deform., I. 86. The Fingers or Toes may be more or less webbed together.

1876.  T. Bryant, Pract. Surg. (ed. 2), II. 300. Webbed fingers and toes are another common deformity.

1913.  Dorland, Med. Dict. (ed. 7), s.v. Penis, Webbed penis, a penis that is inclosed by the skin of the scrotum.

  c.  Machinery. In various uses: see WEB sb. 14.

1794.  Rigging & Seamanship, I. 154. Sheaves … are made … of iron, with a brass coak, either open or webbed.

1913.  J. B. Bishop, Panama Gateway, V. iii. 365. Each [lock gate] is a huge webbed steel box, the girders of which are covered with a steel sheathing.

  2.  Covered with, or as with, cobweb. In Bot. COBWEBBED 2.

1810.  Splendid Follies, I. 110. The tender blades of trefoil were still webbed in silvery gossamer.

1862.  Thornbury, Turner, I. 360. There were skies of an orange purple, skies webbed with grey showers.

1870.  Hooker, Stud. Flora, 191. Carduus crispus … involucre webbed.

1905.  E. T. Thurston, Traffic, II. ii. Only the gaunt, gray forms of the stunted poplars stood out, webbed, against the leaden colour of the sky.