attercop

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English

Etymology

From Middle English attercoppe, from Old English ātorcoppe (spider), corresponding to atter (poison, venom) +‎ cop (spider). The latter is still to be found in the English word cobweb. Cognate to Danish edderkop (spider) and Norwegian edderkopp (spider).

Pronunciation

Noun

attercop (plural attercops)

  1. (dialectal, Northern England) A spider.
    • 1924, Robert Graves, Attercop: the All-Wise Spider:
      Myself, not bound by James’ view / Nor Walter’s, in a vision saw these two / Like trapped and weakening flies / In toils of the same hoary net; / I seemed to hear ancestral cries / Buzzing ‘To our All-Wise, Omnivorous / Attercop glowering over us, / Whose table we have set / With blood and bones and sweat.’
    • 1937 September 21, J[ohn] R[onald] R[euel] Tolkien, “Flies and Spiders”, in The Hobbit: Or There and Back Again, revised edition, New York, N.Y.: Ballantine Books, published February 1966 (August 1967 printing), →OCLC, page 157:
      Old fat spider spinning in a tree! / Old fat spider can’t see me! / Attercop! Attercop! / Won’t you stop, / Stop your spinning and look for me?
  2. (dialectal, Northern England) A peevish or ill-natured person.

Descendants

  • Translingual: Attercopus

Anagrams

Yola

Etymology

From Middle English attercoppe, from Old English ātorcoppe.

Pronunciation

Noun

attercop

  1. spider

References

  • Jacob Poole (d. 1827) (before 1828) William Barnes, editor, A Glossary, With some Pieces of Verse, of the old Dialect of the English Colony in the Baronies of Forth and Bargy, County of Wexford, Ireland, London: J. Russell Smith, published 1867, page 23