Forms: 4–6 coppeweb, (-bes), 4–7 copweb, 5–6 copwebbe, (also 4 copweft); 6 cobbewebbe, 6–7 cobwebbe, 6– cobweb. [ME. coppeweb, f. coppe spider (see COP3) + WEB. Cf. Westphal. cobbenwebbe (Woeste 137 b), and COB sb.4]
1. The web or fine network spun by a spider for the capture of its prey; also, the substance.
1323. Munim. Gildh. Lond. (Rolls), III. 415. Fila de coppewebbes.
1387. Trevisa, Higden (Rolls), VII. 343. Lanfranc destroyede þe castes of þe myȝti men as who destroyeþ copweb [v.r. attercrop weftes, copweft, attercops nestes]. Ibid. (1398), Barth. De P. R., XVIII. xi. (1495), 767. Coppe webbe that is white and clene staunchyth blood.
1514. Barclay, Cyt. & Uplondyshm. (1847), 13. With cobwebbes and dust.
1551. T. Wilson, Logike, 50. Spiders make their owne cobwebs without any other helpe.
1570. Levins, Manip., 47/3. A copwebbe, tela, aranea.
1596. Shaks., Tam. Shr., IV. i. 48. Is … the house trim’d, rushes strew’d, cobwebs swept?
1747. Wesley, Prim. Physick (1762), 30. Make six middling Pills of Cobwebs.
a. 1845. Hood, Turtles, vi. A cellar damp, With venerable cobwebs fringed around.
1860. Emerson, Cond. Life, Fate, Wks. (Bohn), II. 316. A limp band softer than silk or cobweb.
b. A single thread spun by a spider. (Used in optical instruments.)
1837. Goring & Pritchard, Microgr., 50, note. There usually is in cobweb micrometers … a set of teeth,… the said teeth commencing from the immoveable cobweb, or zero of the scale.
1879. Rutley, Study Rocks, vii. 53. The cobweb is aligned on one of the faces of the crystal.
† 2. Threads similar to the spider’s, produced by other insects, etc. (cf. L. arānea and arāneum.)
1392. Trevisa, Barth. De P. R., XVII. clxxvii. (1495), 719. There is a nother euyll that kepers of vynes calle Araneum, for of euyll blastes of wynde and corrupte reyne cometh and bredyth as it were copwebbes.
1577. B. Googe, Heresbach’s Husb., II. (1586), 104 b. Though Homer call the Willowe a fruitelesse tree because his fruite turneth into cobwebs before they be ripe.
1626. Bacon, Sylva, § 728. Catterpillers have Copwebs about them which is a Signe of a Slimy Driness.
3. fig. a. Anything of flimsy, frail or unsubstantial texture; esp. fanciful fine-spun reasoning.
1579. Fulke, Confut. Sanders, 637. That you may see what soundnesse there is in his doctrine, thus he weaueth his copwebbe.
1605. Bacon, Adv. Learn., I. iv. § 5. Copwebs of learning, admirable for the finesse of thread and worke, but of no substance or profite.
1656. Cowley, Pind. Odes, Life & Fame, i. In all the Cobwebs of the Schoolmens trade We no such nice Distinction woven see, As ’tis To be, or Not to Be.
1768. Beattie, Minstr., I. lvi. The sophist’s rope of cobweb he shall twine.
1850. Tennyson, In Mem., cxxiv. The questions men may try, The petty cobwebs we have spun.
b. Any musty accumulation, accretion, or obstruction, which ought to be swept away, like dusty cobwebs in a room. To have a cobweb in the throat: to feel thirsty, or have a desire to drink.
1581. Sidney, Apol. Poetrie (Arb.), 46. Being so euill apparrelled in the dust and cobwebbes of that vnciuil age.
1684. T. Burnet, Th. Earth, III. 28. ’Tis full time now to sweep away these cobwebs of superstition, these reliques of Paganism.
1768–74. Tucker, Lt. Nat. (1852), II. 171. As if … he could not take religion without taking, too, all the cobwebs and trumpery that have clung about it in some dirty corner of the nursery.
1844. W. H. Maxwell, Sports & Adv. Scotl., ii. (1853), 37. He felt a cobweb in his throat.
1850. Carlyle, Latter-d. Pamph., iii. (1872), 102. Let us brush the cobwebs from our eyes.
1862. Athenæum, 27 Sept., 397. An unfailing specific for clearing away cobwebs from the brain.
c. A subtly woven snare, entangling mesh.
1649. G. Daniel, Trinarch., Hen. IV., xvii. ’Tis All a thin Cob web of Policye, whose full extent Only the brooding Spider knowes.
1751. Johnson, Rambler, No. 103, ¶ 9. No snare more dangerous … than the cobwebs of petty inquisitiveness.
1860. Kingsley, Misc., I. 75. Break through the law-cobwebs.
d. Cobweb law: see quot. 1547.
[1547–64. Bauldwin, Mor. Philos. III. v. Lawes of men may be likened to cobwebs, which doe tye or hold the little flyes fast, but the great flyes breake forth and escape.]
1649. Milton, Eikon., xviii. (1851), 470. Our Laws els were but cobweb Laws.
1762. Churchill, Ghost, II. (R.). This same decency … like the cobweb laws, is still Broke through by great ones when they will.
4. Short for Cobweb bird, a local name of the Spotted Flycatcher (Muscicapa grisola).
‘From its use of spiders’ webs in the construction of its nest’ (Swainson).
1712. J. Morton, Northampt., 426. This … is here well-known, and vulgarly called the Copweb.
1862. Johns, Brit. Birds, Index, Cobweb, the Spotted Fly-catcher.
1888. [J. Watson], in Cornh. Mag., April, 380. The site of the present nest and one of its constituents gives two provincial names to the flycatcher—beam-bird and cobweb-bird.
II. attrib. and Comb.
5. attrib. or quasi-adj. (chiefly fig.: see 3).
1607. S. Collins, Serm., 55. Their cobweb-obiections.
1611. B. Jonson, Catiline, IV. v. When I trust to your cobweb bosoms any other [treason] … Let me there die a fly, and feast you, spiders.
c. 1645. Howell, Lett. (1655), I. 190 (N.). Let Divinity be the sole object of your Speculation, in comparison whereof all other Knowledge is but cobweb Learning.
1756–7. trans. Keysler’s Trav. (1760), I. 335. Thomas Aquinas’s cobweb subtleties.
1797. College, a Satire, 7.
| Consign the pile sublime | |
| To cobweb-honours and the dust of time. |
1809. W. Irving, Knickerb. (1861), 146. The cobweb visions of those dreaming varlets, the poets.
1855. Motley, Dutch Rep., III. ii. (1866), 368. These were but cobweb impediments which, indeed, had long been brushed away.
6. Applied adjectivally to a light, finely woven or gauze-like material. See also COBWEB LAWN.
1631. Mabbe, Celestina, I. 7. What idle gyddy-headed braines are vnder those large and fine cob-web veiles.
c. 1755. Mrs. Delany, in Harper’s Mag. (1884), July, 260/1. She had a cobweb laced handkerchief.
1807–8. W. Irving, Salmag. (1824), 80. Making sad inroads into ladies’ cobweb muslins.
1867. ‘Ouida,’ C. Castlemaine (1879), 22. The cobweb handkerchief lies before me.
7. Comb., as cobweb-hanging, -pill, -weaving; cobweb-headed, -like adjs.; cobweb micrometer, a micrometer with cobweb-threads instead of wires; cobweb morning (dial.), a misty morning; so cobweb weather; (cobweb bird: see 4).
c. 1646. Roxb. Ballads, VI. 323. We see White-Hall with *cobweb-hangings on the wall.
1805. Fessenden, Democr., 25.
| Encyclopedists, justly dreaded, | |
| Steely nerv’d, and *cobweb-headed. |
1663. Gerbier, Counsel, 93. Paper like walls, *Cobweb like windowes.
1776. Withering, Brit. Plants (1796), III. 701. With a cobweb-like wool interwoven.
1837. Goring & Pritchard, Microgr., 50. I now have recourse again to the *cobweb micrometer and a deep object-glass.
1674. Ray, S. & E. C. Words, 61. *Cobweb-morning, a misty morning. Norfolk.
1809. Med. Jrnl., XXI. 355. I immediately gave him a *cobweb pill, for … cobweb pills were among the hospital formulæ.
a. 1825. Forby, Voc. East Anglia, *Copweb-weather, misty weather.
1807–8. W. Irving, Salmag. (1824), 229. Mustapha … had as clear a head for *cobweb-weaving as ever dignified the shoulders of a projector.
