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Glite Dictionary
🪲 A silk-spinning insect 🔄 A loading icon
web spinner

web spinner

9.9
A slender tropical insect that lives in colonies and spins silk tunnels for nests
  • noun
  • Specialized
translation icon : spinner de seda
  • The colony of web spinners constructed a series of interconnected silken tunnels along the tree branch.

Examples

  • Unlike spiders, web spinners use their front legs to produce silk for their tunnels.

  • Entomologists discovered a new species of web spinner in the Amazon rainforest.

  • The web spinner creates intricate silk tunnels.

  • Many web spinners are found in tropical forests.

  • Entomologists discovered a new species of web spinner in the Amazon rainforest.

  • The colony of web spinners constructed a series of interconnected silken tunnels along the tree branch.

  • Unlike spiders, web spinners use their front legs to produce silk for their tunnels.

Surface Forms

web spinner singular
web spinners plural
web-spinners plural
web-spinner singular

Morphology

web + spinner

The term combines 'web' in its technological sense (website) with 'spinner' as a rotating object, so a learner who recognises those senses can plausibly infer a rotating graphic shown on a website. However, those senses are technical extensions of the basic meanings (spider web, person who spins) and the connection to a loading indicator is somewhat jargonistic, so the relation is only partially predictable for a B1 learner.

Etymology

The noun web spinner names a small tropical insect that lives in groups and makes long silk tunnels. It is called a web because it makes silk and a spinner because it spins that silk, so the name means an insect that builds silken homes.