spideress

English

Etymology

From spider +‎ -ess.

Noun

spideress (plural spideresses)

1. (rare) A female spider.
   • 1830 September 11, Horace Guilford, “The King of the Spiders”, in The Olio; or, Museum of Entertainment, volume VI, number XII, London: […] Shackell and Carfrae, […] Joseph Shackell […], published 1831, page 187, column 1:

     What shrieks and groans of widow spideresses and orphaned spiderets must haunt his guilty slumbers!

   • 1836 September, J. H. P., “Spiders and their Moral”, in The Western Messenger; Devoted to Religion and Literature, volume II, number 2, Louisville, Ky.: […] [T]he Western Unitarian Association; Boston, Mass.: James Munroe & Co. […], published 1837, page 122:

     In one crotch of the old peach-tree, just by the wall, sat a second cousin of the little eight-eyed fellow we had left up stairs, with her web spread on the most geometric model, and a young and promising family of spiders and spideresses practising gymnastics in the fairy rigging; […]

   • 1867 October, Richard Rowe, “In and About Lower Thames Street”, in The Argosy: A Magazine of Tales, Travels, Essays, and Poems, volume IV, number V, London: Strahan & Co., […], page 389:

     Those cauliflower-heads increase the liquor-longing of the parched wayfarer; and in the quietest corners of these everywhere almost-noiseless thoroughfares there are most private little “publics” that seem expressly made for thirsty souls too modest or too moral to dive into crowded bars: snug little bars, with unslopped metal counters gleaming like silver, and engine-handles as white as an old maid’s just-washed best china, that it would be a shame to suffer to continue customless; and behind those bars comfortable-looking middle-aged human she-spiders, or, peradventure, pretty young spideresses, that wake up from their naps and resume their netting as the bashfully arid human bluebottle buzzes by, and invite him with irresistible smiles of welcome to walk into their parlours, or, at any rate, to do a little Cooper out of those mirror-like pewters, standing.

   • 1905 December 8, “Young Leaguer’s Sale of Work. Bright Scenes at the Club Hall.”, in The Sevenoaks Chronicle, and Kentish Advertiser, number 1378, Sevenoaks, Kent, page 5, column 5:

     There were numerous attractions. There was the great American cobweb, with the Misses Spickett and Ellman as spideresses.

   • 1950, John B[attersby] Crompton Lamburn, “Courting”, in The Life of the Spider, Boston, Mass.: Houghton Mifflin Company; Cambridge, Mass.: The Riverside Press, published 1951, page 186:

     The suitor of the commonest of all the Aranea, Meta segmentata, is wise but certainly not dashing. He does not drum on the web or advertise his presence at all; he hides at the edge and waits until he sees the object of his desire engaged in killing some prey and then comes up behind her and attempts union. It is a far-sighted plan, for not only is she busy at the time but she also has by her something to kill and eat and is not likely to go to the trouble of killing additional prey just then. Moreover Meta is one of the few “frigid” spideresses and it probably would be impossible to excite her in any case.

   • 1951 September 22, Margaret Lloyd, “[World Drama for Belgrade?—Music in Hollywood—Ballet Theater Season] Glow and Polish Enhance New Works, Old Stand-bys”, in The Christian Science Monitor, volume 43, number 253, Boston, Mass.: The Christian Science Publishing Society, page 12, column 8:

     This cup of concentrated bane is lifted to the thesis that the female of the species is more deadly than the male, and molded on the dramatic genius of Nora Kaye. She imparts an air of unholy ritual to the act of crushing her admirers, while the queen (Yvonne Mounsey) and her swarm of spideresses circle round on flashing points, arms raised in attitudes of anathema—like unlovely caricatures of Myrtha and the Wilis in “Giselle.”

   • 1965, Madeleine L’Engle, The Arm of the Starfish, New York, N.Y.: Farrar, Straus and Giroux, published 1982, →ISBN, page 155:

     He had written her out of his life except as the daughter of the spider, and here she was, a new and unwanted responsibility, and a sparrow instead of a spideress.

   • 2009, Scott Monk, Beyond the Knock-knock Door, Sydney, N.S.W.: Random House Australia, →ISBN, page 46:

     They too sported costumes. April Thornleigh – scowling as usual – had come as a spideress. She wore a swirling black-and-yellow cloak, heavy make-up, gold web earrings and a crawling nest of plastic tarantulas in her puffy blonde hair.

   • 2014, John Vanderslice, “[King Philip’s War] On Cherry Street”, in Island Fog, New Orleans, La.: Lavender Ink, →ISBN, page 75:

     She is like a spider who spins her web so tightly that the movement of even the most insignificant creature onto one of its strands sends a clamoring, instantly recognizable vibration. And on an island as small as Nantucket, a spideress does not need to spread her web very far before it encloses virtually everyone.