attercop

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English

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Etymology

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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

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Noun

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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

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  • Translingual: Attercopus

Anagrams

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Yola

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Etymology

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From Middle English attercoppe, from Old English ātorcoppe.

Pronunciation

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Noun

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attercop

  1. spider

References

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  • 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