Word.ws English Dictionary

retiary

/ˈɹiʃiˌɛɹi/UK/ˈɹiːʃɪəɹi/

retiary adjective: net-like.

Adjective

retiary (not comparable)

  1. net-like
    • And, beside this kind of work in retiary and hanging textures1658, Thomas Browne, The Garden of Cyrus
  2. (archaic) Constructing or using a web, or net, to catch prey; said of certain spiders.
  3. Armed with a net; hence, skilful at entangling.
    • scholastic retiary versatility of logicc. 1810-1820, Samuel Taylor Coleridge, Notes on Jeremy Taylor

Noun

retiary (plural retiaries)

  1. Any spider that spins webs to catch its prey.
  2. (historical) A retiarius: a gladiator who fought with a net.

Forms of retiary

pluralretiaries

Origin of retiary

Compare Latin retiarius.

Questions about retiary

What does retiary mean?
Retiary means net-like.
What part of speech is retiary?
Retiary can be an adjective or a noun.
How do you pronounce retiary?
Retiary is pronounced /ˈɹiːʃɪəɹi/ (UK).

Words near retiary in the dictionary

  1. retial
  2. retiari
  3. retiaries
  4. retiarii
  5. retiarius
  6. retiary
  7. retic
  8. reticella
  9. reticellas
  10. reticelli
  11. reticello

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: retiary (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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