spider n.
1. (US) a term of abuse; one who 'sucks you dry’.
![[UK]](/static/img/flags/uk.png "United Kingdom") | Life in the West I 130: The gaming system is of so varied and extensive a nature, that it cannot be unaptly compared to a spider’s web; those who live by it, by their peculiar habits, to spiders; and their victims, to ‘flies’. | |
![[US]](/static/img/flags/us.png "United States") | Bottom Dogs 2: One [...] said some sawed-off spider from New York had been following her and was leeching her money. |
2. in context of alcohol [? it ‘creeps up’ on the drinker].
(a) (Aus.) a drink composed of brandy and lemonade or of brandy and beer or of sherry and lemonade.
| ‘Drunkard’s Farewell to his Folly’ in Curiosities of Street Lit. (1871) 91: Farewell spiders and your houses. | |
![[Aus]](/static/img/flags/aus.png "Australia") | Melbourne Punch 21 Feb. 24/2: [T]hey turned into the Criterion to liquor; there they had sundry cocktails and spiders, which Nokes stood. | |
| Leeds Times 5 Feb. 6/1: It was not thought polite the refuse [...] the ‘brandy spider’ or the ’nobbler dark’. | |
| Bushrangers 333: [We] made him give us a ‘spider,’ or some brandy and beer mixed. | |
| ‘Short Shift Saturday’ in Mann Coast to Coast 229: You’ve had your drink, so now you’ve got to buy us all a spider at Smith’s. | |
| I Travelled a Lonely Land (1957) 239/2: spider – a drink made of brandy and lemonade. | |
| Folklore of the Aus. Pub 129: Spider: now the name for a drink of lemonade and ice-cream, spider was the gold-diggers’ term for [...] brandy and lemonade. |
(b) claret and lemonade.
| Sl. and Its Analogues. | |
| True Drunkard’s Delight 231: Spider or, in American slang, parlour full of razors, claret and lemonade. |
(c) (US) the dregs of a bottle.
| Neon Wilderness (1986) 76: I picked up a bottle that didn’t bust but there wasn’t a spider left in ’er, the boobatch’d drunk her dry. |
3. (US) a wire picklock, a skeleton key.
| Autobiog. of a Gipsey 422: A tin box containg a varied assortment of skeleton-keys with wards at both ends, termed ‘double-enders,’ and a bunch of wire picklocks known in the trade as ‘spiders’. | |
| Dames Don’t Care (1960) 17: I get outa the storeroom, lock the door with the spider an’ mix myself a hard one in the bar. |
4. as a vehicle.
(a) (Aus.) a light gig or two-wheeled, one-horse carriage.
![[SA]](/static/img/flags/sa.png "South Africa") | A Nobody in Mashonaland 12: The Chief used to go to church in a spider. (*A light four-wheeled trap). | |
| Tommy Cornstalk 142: And old ‘spider’ – a four-wheeled wagonette, commandeered from some farm – had been left behind, and, with a couple of debilitated mules as motive power, the various kits and possessions of the dismounted men who remained were to be carried into Pretoria on it. | |
| Cobbers 18: The novelty of watching horses race by electric light is increased by the sight of them pulling gigs. These are called ‘spiders’. |
(b) a bicycle.
| Boy’s Own Paper 29 June 614: I have written [...] about some cycling adventures I have experienced, some on bone-shakers, others on spiders. |
(c) (US tramp) a Ford automobile.
| Amer. Tramp and Und. Sl. 178: Spider.–A Ford car, the word coined and used widely by automobile thieves for the older model of this make, which did look rather light and spidery alongside the other more expensive and more stable cars. |
(d) (US Und.) a stripped down automobile.
| Criminal Sl. (rev. edn). |
5. (US campus) a hard worker [the industrious arachnid].
| Official Preppie Hbk 90: 13 Words For The Person Who Is Working — 1. Grind 2. Squid 3. Pencil Geek 4. Cereb 5. Grub 6. Weenie 7. Throat 8. Tool 9. Wonk 10. Gome 11. Nerd 12. Spider 13. Conch. |
6. see rock spider n.
SE in slang uses
In compounds
a domestic servant.
 | Widow & Marquess 35: Carefully folded according to the suggestion of the venerable spider-brusher . | |
![[Ire]](/static/img/flags/ire.png "Ireland") | Rambling Recollections of a Soldier of Fortune 222: I was introduced by a piquant and pretty-looking spider-brusher. | |
| Colburn's New Mthly Mag. and Humorist 155: Among the dollymops and spider-brushers, a red-fisted, knock-kneed footboy, who curls his hair and frizzles it on the top of his head [...] is held to be dandy. |
1. a monkey.
| Sir Clyomon and Sir Clamydes in Dyce (1861) 504: Here’s my hand: charm, enchant, make a spider-catcher of me, if I be false to you ever. | |
| School of Complement I i: If I fail, call me a Spider-catcher. | |
| Dict. Archaic and Provincial Words II 783/2: Spider-Catcher. A monkey. |
2. an extremely thin man.
| Dict. Canting Crew n.p.: Spider-catcher, a Spindle for a Man. |
of a man, to play with one’s testicles.
| Sl. and Its Analogues. |
(US) a steel erector.
| Picture Post 26 Mar. 5: You may be astonished to learn that a steel erector, or ‘spiderman’, in the United States can earn more than fifty pounds a week. |
(US prison) a prisoner who is finding it hard to do their sentence.
| Other Side of the Wall: Prisoner’s Dict. July 🌐 Spider Monkey: Someone doing hard time, climbing the walls. |
used to describe a man with very thin legs; thus spider-shanks n., a man with very thin legs.
| Newes from the New Exchange 15: As for Jack, with his Spider’s shanks, his Mistresse is not arrived to fourteene yet. | |
| , , | | Classical Dict. of the Vulgar Tongue. |
| Lex. Balatronicum. | |
| Pelham III 296: The tallest of the set, who bore the euphonious appellation of Spider-shanks. | |
| (con. 1737–9) Rookwood (1857) 115: I owe that spidershank’d, sniveling split-cause Coates, who stands sentry, a grudge, and I’II pay him off, as Paul did the Ephesians. … give him a taste of blue plumb. | |
| Ainwick Mercury (Northumberland) 18 May 4/4: She’s nane o’ your baby-faced, spider-shanked lasses [...] A stout muirland gilpie is Elsie M’Nab. |
1. (Scot.) very thin hand-rolled cigarettes.
| Cut and Run (1963) 103: His friends kept me well supplied with a few ‘spider’s-legs’ a day [...] these are very thin roll-ups, made from strong shag. |
2. (UK teen) pubic hairs that protrude beyond a woman’s panties or bikini.
| Roger’s Profanisaurus in Viz 87 Dec. n.p.: spider’s legs n. Of muffs (qv) rogue pubic hairs which protrude beyond the knicker line. | |
| OnLine Dict. of Playground Sl. 🌐 spiders legs n. the stray hairs that ‘escape’ from the edges of a girls bikini or underwear. |