cobweb

English

Alternative forms

Etymology

From Middle English copweb, coppeweb, coppewebbe, from Old English ātorcoppe (“spider”) + webb.

Compare Middle Dutch kopwebbe, German Low German Kobbenwebbe (Westphalian). By surface analysis, cob (“spider”, obsolete) +‎ web.

Pronunciation

  • IPA(key): /ˈkɒbwɛb/
  • Audio (US):(file)
  • Hyphenation: cob‧web

Noun

cobweb (plural cobwebs)

  1. A spiderweb, especially a large one, an old abandoned one covered with debris and dust or an asymmetrical one woven with an irregular pattern of threads.
    Synonyms: spiderweb, web
    • 1865, Henry David Thoreau, chapter X, in Cape Cod, Provincetown, page 200:
      […] there was stretched across his gateway a circular cobweb of the largest kind and quite entire. This looked so ominous that I actually turned aside and went in the back way.
    • 1907, Barbara Baynton, edited by Sally Krimmer and Alan Lawson, Human Toll (Portable Australian Authors: Barbara Baynton), St Lucia: University of Queensland Press, published 1980, page 286:
      A cobweb, night-spun, hung in an insidious circle from branch to branch, facing her. Early as it was, its first victim struggled in its gummy meshes.
    1. One of a spiderweb's filaments; gossamer; anything flimsy and gauzy, intricately interconnected or otherwise like a cobweb.
      cobweb model, cobweb theory
    2. (figurative) An intricate plot to catch the unwary; something entangling or confusing.
      Synonyms: intrigue, web
      I was confused by the cobwebs of contract law.
    1. (figurative) Something thin and unsubstantial, or flimsy and worthless; valueless remainder.
      blow the cobwebs away
      • a. 1587 (date written), Phillip Sidney [i.e., Philip Sidney], An Apologie for Poetrie. […], London: […] [James Roberts] for Henry Olney, […], published 1595, →OCLC; republished as Edward Arber, editor, An Apologie for Poetrie (English Reprints), London: [Alexander Murray & Son], 1 April 1868, →OCLC:
        The dust and cobwebs of that uncivil age.
      • 2018 February 10, Phil McNulty, “Tottenham Hotspur 1 - 0 Arsenal”, in BBC‎[1], archived from the original on 19 December 2025:
        Once the cobwebs of a lack-lustre first half were blown away, Spurs were irresistible and Arsenal were simply unable to cope with the power of Mousa Dembele in midfield and the creation and running of Christian Eriksen and Dele Alli - combined with the inevitable goalscoring prowess of Kane.
  2. (informal, usually in the plural) Fuzzy inexact memories; confusion.
    • 2008, Burlan Eugene Ellison, The Ebony Coffin: A Jim Kirkwood Novel‎[2], page 98:
      I washed my face, trying to get the cobwebs of hard sex and an alcohol-induced sleep out of my head
    • 2008, Wally Lamb, The Hour I First Believed, Ch.5, at p.116:
      "Hey," she said. "You know what? After you call the hospital, why don't you go for a run? It'll help clear out the cobwebs, get rid of some of that tension. Then go back, take a nice hot shower, and―"
      "There's no shower here. Remember?"
      "Oh, right. A nice hot bath, then. Even better. And eat breakfast, Caelum. You need to remember to eat."
    • 2012, Stanley M. Bierman, Napoleon's Penis: Plus Other Engaging and Outrageous Tales‎[3], page 16:
      Veyz mir, meaning something like “Oh . . . my!,” was a Yiddish expression that I had not employed for a long, long time. Yet in the cobwebs of my memory, that expression was still lurking inside. How interesting!
    1. (Internet slang, rare, figurative) A web page that either has not been updated for a long time, or one that is rarely visited.
      Synonym: cobweb site
  3. The European spotted flycatcher, Muscicapa striata.

Derived terms

Translations

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