zebra spider, n.

zebra-spider
http://www.oed.com/dictionary/zebra-spider_n%3Ftab%3Dmeaning_and_use
Revised 2018

# zebra spidernoun

## Factsheet

### What does the noun zebra spider mean?

There is one meaning in OED's entry for the noun zebra spider. See ‘Meaning & use’ for definition, usage, and quotation evidence.

### How common is the noun zebra spider?

Fewer than 0.01occurrences per million words in modern written English

1830 | 0.0003
1840 | 0.0002
1850 | 0.0002
1860 | 0.0002
1870 | 0.0002
1880 | 0.0001
1890 | 0.0002
1900 | 0.0002
1910 | 0.0003
1920 | 0.0003
1930 | 0.0004
1940 | 0.0004
1950 | 0.0005
1960 | 0.0005
1970 | 0.0005
1980 | 0.0005
1990 | 0.0005
2000 | 0.0005
2010 | 0.0005

### Where does the noun zebra spider come from?

Earliest known use

1800s

The earliest known use of the noun zebra spider is in the 1800s.

OED's earliest evidence for zebra spider is from 1806, in the writing of C. A. Walckenaer.

### Nearby entries

1. zebra opossum, n. 1808–
2. zebra parakeet, n. 1856–
3. zebra plant, n. 1826–
4. zebra poison, n. 1871–74
5. zebra print, n. & adj. 1932–
6. zebra rhomb, n. 1770–1844
7. zebra rock, n. 1895–
8. zebra rush, n. 1882–
9. zebra shark, n. 1804–
10. zebra skin, n. 1774–
11. zebra spider, n.1806–
12. zebra suit, n. 1853–
13. zebra swallowtail, n. 1855–
14. zebra wolf, n. 1808–
15. zebrawood, n. 1768–
16. zebra woodpecker, n. 1884–
17. zebrina, n. 1846–
18. zebrine, adj. a1810–
19. zebroid, adj. & n. 1881–
20. zebrule, n. 1899–
21. zebu, n. 1771–

## Meaning & use

1. 1806–
   Any of several striped spiders; esp. a small jumping spider, Salticus scenicus (family Salticidae), found throughout the Holarctic.
   In quot. 1806: the wasp spider, Argiope bruennichi.
   1. 1806

      > Epeira fasciata... L'Araignée zébrée. Die Zebra-Spinne. The Zebra Spider.

      C. A. Walckenaer, Hist. Nat. des Aranéides iii. Pl. 1 (heading)
   2. 1866

      > Next to the garden-spider, the hunting or zebra spider is the most common.

      Hours at Home August 331/1
   3. 1966

      > The commonest of these [jumping spiders] was banded black and white like a zebra... Zebra spiders are able to leap..in an eighteen-inch arc.

      C. Sweeney, Scurrying Bush vi. 87
   4. 2014

      > Another species I spotted was the zebra spider jumping from stone to stone.

      Western Daily Press (Nexis) 15 April 16
   invertebrates
   1. tick-spider 1721–
      Name for a jumping spider.
   2. jumping-spider 1803–
      One of the group of spiders which leap upon their prey, instead of spinning a web to catch it.
   3. zebra spider 1806–
      Any of several striped spiders; esp. a small jumping spider, Salticus scenicus (family Salticidae), found throughout the Holarctic.
   4. saltigrade 1840–
      n. A spider of this group.
   View in Historical Thesaurus

## Frequency

zebra spider typically occurs fewer than 0.01 times per million words in modern written English.

zebra spider is in frequency band 1, which contains words occurring fewer than 0.001 times per million words in modern written English. More about OED's frequency bands

Frequency data is computed programmatically, and should be regarded as an estimate.

### Frequency of zebra spider, n., 1830–2010

* Occurrences per million words in written English

Historical frequency series are derived from Google Books Ngrams (version 2), a data set based on the Google Books corpus of several million books printed in English between 1500 and 2010.

The overall frequency for a given word is calculated by summing frequencies for the main form of the word, any plural or inflected forms, and any major spelling variations.

For sets of homographs (distinct entries that share the same word-form, e.g. mole, n.¹, mole, n.², mole, n.³, etc.), we have estimated the frequency of each homograph entry as a fraction of the total Ngrams frequency for the word-form. This may result in inaccuracies.

Smoothing has been applied to series for lower-frequency words, using a moving-average algorithm. This reduces short-term fluctuations, which may be produced by variability in the content of the Google Books corpus.

Decade | Frequency per million words
--- | ---
1830 | 0.0003
1840 | 0.0002
1850 | 0.0002
1860 | 0.0002
1870 | 0.0002
1880 | 0.0001
1890 | 0.0002
1900 | 0.0002
1910 | 0.0003
1920 | 0.0003
1930 | 0.0004
1940 | 0.0004
1950 | 0.0005
1960 | 0.0005
1970 | 0.0005
1980 | 0.0005
1990 | 0.0005
2000 | 0.0005
2010 | 0.0005

Originally published as part of the entry for zebra, n.

zebra, n. was revised in June 2018.