cobwebs

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.
   • […] 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.1865, Henry David Thoreau, chapter X, in Cape Cod, Provincetown, page 200

   Synonyms:

   spiderweb, web

   1. One of a spiderweb's filaments; gossamer; anything flimsy and gauzy, intricately interconnected or otherwise like a cobweb.
      • cobweb model, cobweb theory
   2. (figuratively) An intricate plot to catch the unwary; something entangling or confusing.
      • I was confused by the cobwebs of contract law.
   3. (figuratively) Something thin and unsubstantial, or flimsy and worthless; valueless remainder.
      • blow the cobwebs away
2. (informal, plural-normally) Fuzzy inexact memories; confusion.
   • I washed my face, trying to get the cobwebs of hard sex and an alcohol-induced sleep out of my head2008, Burlan Eugene Ellison, The Ebony Coffin: A Jim Kirkwood Novel, page 98
   1. (Internet, figuratively, informal, plural-normally, rare) A web page that either has not been updated for a long time, or one that is rarely visited.

See all 7 meanings of cobweb