Word.ws English Dictionary

cross spider

cross spider noun: the European garden spider (Araneus diadematus).

cross spider: the European garden spider (Araneus diadematus)
Image: Ruben Goethals, CC BY-SA 2.5, via Wikimedia Commons

Noun

cross spider (plural cross spiders)

  1. The European garden spider (Araneus diadematus).
    • I gazed at the defenceless captives with a shuddering sense of security, until one day a cross-spider broke out of its cage and ran furiously over my hands and clothing.1960, Gottfried Keller, translated by AM Holt, Green Henry, Calder Publications, published 2010, page 69

Forms of cross spider

pluralcross spiders
alternative formcross-spider

Origin of cross spider

From cross + spider, from the common marking found on their backs.

Questions about cross spider

What does cross spider mean?
Cross spider means the European garden spider (Araneus diadematus).
What part of speech is cross spider?
Cross spider is a noun.
What is the plural of cross spider?
The plural of cross spider is cross spiders.

Words near cross spider in the dictionary

  1. cross someone's mind
  2. cross someone's palm
  3. cross someone's palm with silver
  4. cross someone's path
  5. cross someone's T
  6. cross spider
  7. cross spiders
  8. cross springer
  9. cross springers
  10. Cross Street
  11. cross swords

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: cross spider (page history and authors). Text available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 license. Word.ws reformatted the entry and added links. Wiktionary data of 2026-09-02.

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Cite this entry: “cross spider.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/cross_spider. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.