spider crab
- noun
- /ˈspaɪdər kræb/
:
cangrejo araña
- On our trip to the ocean, we saw a giant spider crab with long legs crawling across the sandy bottom.
- a pale spider crab
Examples
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PHOTO (COLOR): Crab researcher Brad Stevens displays a spider crab to schoolchildren during a port stop in Kodiak on July 3.
Academic text (2002) -
Photo (color): In addition to using Alvin, crab researchers dropped a crab trap to bring back an abundance of crabs (in this case, spider crabs).
Academic text (2002) -
What I mean with that is that in Spain you value how good the spider crabs are by how full they are.
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"That spider crab couldn't help itself," she says.
Academic text (2002) -
Another time we got lucky and found two spider crabs to hide in our pockets and take home as pets.
Fiction book (1994) -
A finger like a pale spider crab moves along the sheet and depresses a button.
Fiction book (2001) -
The establishment distributes lobster, crayfish, spider crabs, shrimp, and cockles.
Academic text (1994) -
Stevens, whose laboratory is in Kodiak, is among the researchers to finish his journey here, unloading two chillers full of enormous red and golden king crabs and spider crabs, which he hopes will mate in the lab.
Academic text (2002) -
The chef prepared a delicious dish using fresh spider crabs that were caught that morning.
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Many divers love to spot the colorful spider crab hiding among the coral reefs.
Synonyms
5
9.9
A group of spider crabs found in many seas
A very large crab from Japan with very long legs that lives in the deep sea
A very large sea crab from Japan that lives in deep water with very long legs
A very large crab with long legs that lives in Japanese seas
A large crab with a spiny shell and long legs found in the Mediterranean Sea and nearby Atlantic waters
A large crab with long legs and a spiny shell that lives in European coastal waters
A group of crabs like spider crabs found in many seas
A group of crabs that live in the sea in many parts of the world
A group of spider crabs with spiny shells found in many seas
A group of sea crabs with long, thin legs and triangle-shaped bodies
A group of sea crabs with long legs and shells with spines
Surface Forms
Morphology
The meaning 'a crab with very long legs and a small body' is directly inferable from combining 'spider' (an eight-legged arachnid) with 'crab' (a crustacean); the compound signals a crab that resembles a spider in its long-legged appearance. This straightforward, descriptive compounding is cross-linguistically common for animal names and should be immediately understandable to a B1 learner who knows both constituents.
Etymology
The name spider crab comes from the animal's very long, thin legs that spread out like a spider around a small crab body. So the name now means a 'crab with very long legs'.