![\"Attercop](\"http:\/\/www.omniglot.com\/images\/blog\/spider.gif\")
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In The Hobbit<\/a>, Bilbo uses the words attercop, lazy lob, crazy cob, and old tomnodd as insults he’s attacked by giant spiders in Mirkwood. I guessed that they are alternative names for spiders, but I thought I’d check.<\/p>\n Attercop<\/strong> is a word for spider from the Old English \u00e1torcoppe<\/em>, from \u00e1tor\/attor<\/em> (poison) and coppe<\/em>, from cop<\/em> (top, summit, round head), or copp<\/em> (cup, vessel). It is apparently still used in North Yorkshire, though is considered old fashioned. It can also mean a peevish or ill-natured person. Possibly related words include the Norwegian edderkopp(er)<\/em> (spider) and the Danish edderkop(per)<\/em>.<\/p>\n Lob<\/strong> is another extinct word for spider from the Old English lobbe\/loppe<\/em>, of unknown origin.<\/p>\n Cob<\/strong> is another extinct word for spider that features in cobweb, and is probably cognate with the Flemish cobbe\/coppe<\/em> (spider) and Westphalian cobbe<\/em> (spider).<\/p>\n I can’t find any information about tomnodd<\/strong>. Do you know where it might come from?<\/p>\n Other Old English words for spider include gangewifre<\/em> (‘a weaver as he goes’) sp\u00ed\u00f0ra<\/em>, w\u00e6fergange<\/em>, gongelw\u00e6fre<\/em> and spigt<\/em>.<\/p>\n Source: OED<\/a>, Word Wide Words<\/a>, Wiktionary<\/a>, Old English Tranlsator<\/a><\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" In The Hobbit, Bilbo uses the words attercop, lazy lob, crazy cob, and old tomnodd as insults he’s attacked by giant spiders in Mirkwood. I guessed that they are alternative names for spiders, but I thought I’d check. Attercop is a word for spider from the Old English \u00e1torcoppe, from \u00e1tor\/attor (poison) and coppe, from […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[100,104,107,10,31,78],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-9855","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-danish","category-english","category-etymology","category-language","category-norwegian","category-words-and-phrases"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.omniglot.com\/bloggle\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9855","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.omniglot.com\/bloggle\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.omniglot.com\/bloggle\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.omniglot.com\/bloggle\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.omniglot.com\/bloggle\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=9855"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.omniglot.com\/bloggle\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9855\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.omniglot.com\/bloggle\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=9855"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.omniglot.com\/bloggle\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=9855"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.omniglot.com\/bloggle\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=9855"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}