barking spider
- noun
- /ˈbɑrkɪŋ ˈspaɪdər/
- Informal
:
araña ladradora
- When he tooted during dinner, he quickly blamed it on a barking spider, and everyone burst into laughter.
Examples
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He blamed the strange noise on a barking spider, making everyone laugh.
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When the room fell silent, someone joked that a barking spider had passed by.
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Kids love to pretend they've seen a barking spider in the backyard.
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My brother said he heard a barking spider last night!
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Did you hear that? It sounded like a barking spider!
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During our camping trip, the kids kept saying they heard a barking spider to explain the strange sounds at night.
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She humorously claimed that a barking spider was the source of the odd noise coming from the bathroom.
Synonyms
1
9.9
An imaginary creature often found in children's stories
Surface Forms
Morphology
The phrase transparently combines 'barking' and 'spider', so a learner who knows the words will readily form the literal, playful image of a spider that barks and recognise the incongruity as humorous. However, its conventional pragmatic use as a joking explanation for unexpected sounds (e.g. flatulence) is an idiomatic extension that is not directly predictable from the constituents, making the expression only partially transparent to B1 learners.
Etymology
Barking spider is a made-up, joking creature that people picture as a tiny spider that somehow barks, a funny and impossible image. People use this silly picture to 'blame' an unexpected or embarrassing noise, so the phrase becomes a playful way to explain a sound without saying what it really is.