adv. and a. [SPIDER sb.]
A. adv. In or after the manner of a spider; with the power or faculty (real or supposed) of a spider.
Freq. in the 17th cent.
1604. Hieron, Wks., I. 497. Mans corrupt nature, spider-like, turneth the wholesome doctrine into poison.
1673. Dryden, Marr. à la Mode, II. i. 30.
| And when our eyes meet far off, our sense is such, | |
| That, Spider-like, we feel the tender’st touch. |
1700. C. Nesse, Antid. Armin. (1827), 117. If man (spider-like) could spin a thread out of his own bowels.
1783. Wolcot (P. Pindar), Lyric Odes, I. vi. Like him, in holes too, spider-like, I mope.
1839. Bailey, Festus, 128. I have that within me I can live upon: Spider-like, spin my place out anywhere.
1869. Ld. Lytton, Orval, II. vii. 69. I cannot pass Where pathway none can be. Nor from myself Spin, spiderlike, a passage through the vast And vacant air.
B. adj. Like or resembling a spider or that of a spider; having the characteristic appearance or qualities of a spider; spidery.
a. 1653. Gouge, Comm. Heb. vi. 16 (1655), 89. Some men have such a spider-like disposition, as they will suck poyson out of the sweetest flowers.
1754. Hay, Ess. Deformity, 18. I … often restrain my inclination to perform those little Services, rather than expose my Spider-like Shape.
1806. Shaw, Gen. Zool., VI. II. 472. The present genus [sc. Phalangium], which, exclusive of its spider-like shape, is … armed with weapons resembling those of the genus Aranea.
1842. Dickens, Barn. Rudge (1849), 235/1. Struggling to free himself from her chaste, but spider-like embrace.
