different between cobweb vs coppe

English

Etymology

From Middle English copweb, coppeweb, equivalent to cop (“spider”) +? web. Compare Middle Dutch kopwebbe, German Low German Kobbenwebbe (Westphalian).

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): /?k?bw?b/
• Hyphenation: cob?web

Noun

cobweb (plural cobwebs)

1. A spiderweb, or the remains of one, especially an asymmetrical one that is woven with an irregular pattern of threads.
   • 1865, Henry David Thoreau, Cape Cod, Chapter X. "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.
2. One of its filaments; gossamer.
3. (figuratively) Something thin and unsubstantial, or flimsy and worthless; valueless remainder.
   • c. 1579, Philip Sidney, The Defense of Poesy

     The dust and cobwebs of that uncivil age.
4. An intricate plot to catch the unwary.

   • Entangled in the cobwebs of the schools.

5. (Internet slang, rare) A web page that either has not been updated for a long time, or that is rarely visited.
6. The European spotted flycatcher, Muscicapa striata.
7. (informal, usually in the plural) fuzzy inexact memories.
   • 2008 Burlan Eugene Ellison The Ebony Coffin: A Jim Kirkwood Novel page 98

     I washed my face, trying to get the cobwebs of hard sex and an alcohol-induced sleep out of my head

   • 2012 Stanley M. Bierman Napoleon's Penis: Plus Other Engaging and Outrageous Tales 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!

Hypernyms

• web

Derived terms

Translations

English

Etymology

From Old English [Term?], primarily occurring in the northeast Midlands region of England. Ultimately from Proto-Germanic *kuppaz (“vault, round vessel, head”), from Proto-Indo-European *g?- (“to bend, curve”).Compare Danish edderkop, Norwegian edderkopp, Low German kobbe.

Originating from the Dutch invaders who populated this area, the same word coppe, pronounced 'kab', existed in Middle Dutch up until the 14th century . The word kobbe, meaning spider, still exists in West-Flemish, a Dutch dialect spoken in the West of Flanders.

Noun

coppe

1. (archaic, Britain, regional) A spider.

Usage notes

• Still in use in the northeast Midlands region of England, although now almost obsolete.

Derived terms

• cobweb
• coppeweb

References

Italian

Noun

coppe f

1. plural of coppa
2. suit of some playing card

Anagrams

• ceppo