Attercop

//ˈætəkɒp// noun

noun ·Rare ·Advanced level

Definitions

Noun
  1. 1
    A spider. Northern-England, dialectal

    "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.’"

  2. 2
    A peevish or ill-natured person. Northern-England, dialectal

Synonyms

All synonyms
spiderspider

Example

More examples

"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.’"

Etymology

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”).

Related phrases

ill natured

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Data sourced from Wiktionary, WordNet, CMU, and other open linguistic databases. Updated March 2026.