Tarantula

Definitions: Tarantula

Tarantula

Noun

1. Large southern European spider once thought to be the cause of tarantism (uncontrollable bodily movement).

2. Large hairy tropical spider that can inflict painful but not highly venomous bites.

Date "tarantula" was first used in popular English literature: sometime before 1690. (references)

Etymology: Tarantula \Ta*ran"tu*la\, noun; plural English Tarantulas, from Latin expression Tarantul[ae]. [New Latin expression, from Italian tarantola, from the Latin expression Tarentum, now Taranto, in the south of Italy.]. (Websters 1913)

Specialty Definitions: Tarantula

Domain	Definitions
Dream Interpretation	To see a tarantula in your dream, signifies enemies are about to overwhelm you with loss. To kill one, denotes you will be successful after much ill-luck. Source: Ten Thousand Dreams Interpreted ....
Source: compiled by the editor from various references; see credits.

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Specialty Definition: Tarantula

(From Wikipedia, the free Encyclopedia)

The word tarantula applies to two very different kinds of spiders. The spider that originally got this name is neither particularly large, particularly hairy, nor particularly venomous. Its scientific name is Lycosa tarantula, which makes it one of the wolf spiders. Its name comes from that of Taranto, a town in Southern Italy. The bite of this spider was once believed to cause a fatal condition called tarantism. The cure for the disease was believed to involve wild dancing of a kind that has come to be called the tarantella. Actually, the bite of this kind of spider is not even particularly painful, let alone life-threatening. There appears to have been an entirely different kind of spider in the fields around Taranto that caused fairly severe bites, but the tarantulas, being wolf spiders, were fairly large, out in the open, and were frequently seen running around, which drew attention to them, and so they got the blame. Join that factor with the belief in tarantism and the supposed need for wild dancing to prevent sure death, and the fearsome world-wide reputation of the tarantula was guaranteed.

When people who knew about the tarantulas emigrated to the Americas and discovered fearsomely large and hairy spiders in the New World, they bestowed the name "tarantula" on them. Those spiders belong to the Suborder Orthognatha, the Family Theraphosidae and the Family Dipluridae. They can be quite large.

The body of the Rose Tarantula from Chile (Grammastola spatulatus) pictured below is approximately 2.5 inches (6.2 cm.) long. None of these fearsome-looking creatures make the list of deadly spiders, and this particular kind of tarantula is regarded as being especially docile. Some people claim, without identifying specific spiders, that there are deadly varieties of tarantulas somewhere in South America. Perhaps those people have misidentified the dangerous Brazilian Wandering Spider (Phoneutria nigriventer) as a "tarantula" because it is fairly large (about an inch long), somewhat hairy, and is regarded as aggressive.

Rose tarantula from Chile
(larger version)

Source: adapted by the editor from Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia under a copyleft GNU Free Documentation License (GFDL) from the article "Tarantula."

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Synonyms: Tarantula

Synonyms: European wolf spider (n), Lycosa tarentula (n). (additional references)

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Crosswords: Tarantula

English words defined with "tarantula": Citigradae ♦ Mygale ♦ tarantism, Tarantula killer, Tarantulae, Tarantulas, Tarantulated, Tarentula. (references)

Etymologies containing "tarantula": tarantism. (references)

Non-English Usage: "Tarantula" is also a word in the following languages with English translations in parentheses.

Dutch (tarantula), Italian (tarantula), Serbo-Croatian (tarantula), Sicilian (spider), Spanish (tarantula), Turkish (tarantula).

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Modern Usage: Tarantula

Domain	Usage
Screenplays	I don't - hey Joe! Get me a tarantula. (Singin' in the Rain; writing credit: Betty Comden and Adolph Green.) He has an 80-foot tarantula. (Wild Wild West; writing credit: Jim Thomas; John Thomas) Tarantula Arms? (A Streetcar Named Desire; writing credit: Tennessee Williams; Oscar Saul) There's a giant tarantula headed your way. (Eight Legged Freaks; writing credit: Ellory Elkayem; Randy Kornfield)
Lyrics	Hide thee deadly black tarantula ("Banana Boat (Day-O)"; performing artist: Harry Belafonte)
Movie/TV Titles	Kiss of the Tarantula (1972) Tarantula (1962) The Tarantula (1916) Fight Between Tarantula and Scorpion (1900)
Source: compiled by the editor from various references; see credits.

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Commercial Usage: Tarantula

Domain	Title
Books	Tarantula (reference) Tarantula (Bug Books) (reference) Tarantula Shoes (reference) Tarantula Spiders (Animal Kingdom) (reference) Tarantula Spiders (Spiders) (reference) (more book examples)

Theater & Movies	Kiss of the Tarantula (reference) Mari-Cookie and the Killer Tarantula (aka Eight Legs to Love You) DVD (reference) Predators of the Wild: Giant Tarantula (reference) Tarantula (reference) (more DVD examples; more video examples)

Music	Tarantula [EXPLICIT LYRICS] (reference) (more classical music examples; more popular music examples)
Source: compiled by the editor from various references; see credits.

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Image Slideshow: Tarantula

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Usage Frequency: Tarantula

"Tarantula" is generally used as a noun (singular) -- approximately 79.31% of the time. "Tarantula" is used about 29 times out of a sample of 100 million words spoken or written in English. Its rank is based on over 700,000 words used in the English language. Some parts-of-speech are not covered due to the samples used by the British National Corpus. (note: percents less than one-hundredth of one percent have been omitted)

Parts of Speech	Percent	Usage per 100 Million Words	Rank in English
Noun (singular)	79.31%	23	72,767
Noun (proper)	20.69%	6	143,867
Total	100.00%	29	N/A

Source: compiled by the editor from several corpora; see credits.

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Expressions: Tarantula

Expressions using "tarantula": Tarantula apuliae ♦ Tarantula killer. Additional references.
Source: compiled by the editor from various references; see credits.

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Frequency of Internet Keywords: Tarantula

The following statistics estimate the number of searches per day across the major English-language search engines as identified by various trade publications. Hyperlinks lead to commercial use of the expression at Amazon.com.

Expression	Frequency per Day
tarantula	810
spider tarantula	55
tarantula train	46
tarantula picture	44
tito tarantula	40
rose hair tarantula	36
tarantula care	29
cobalt blue tarantula	19
goliath tarantula	18
pet tarantula	17
Source: compiled by the editor from various references; see credits.

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Modern Translations: Tarantula

Language		Translations for "tarantula"; alternative meanings/domain in parentheses.
Albanian		tarantulë, merimangë e madhe. (various references)

Arabic		‏عنكبوت ذئبي. (various references)

Aymara		qampu. (various references)

Bulgarian		тарантул, голям черен паяк. (various references)

Czech		tarantule (wolf-spider). (various references)

Dutch		tarantula. (various references)

Esperanto		tarantulo. (various references)

Farsi		رطیل(ج.ش.). (various references)

French		tarentule. (various references)

German		Tarantel. (various references)

Greek		είδοσ μεγάλησ αράχνησ, ταράντουλα. (various references)

Hungarian		tarantellapók. (various references)

Indonesian		laba-laba (spider). (various references)

Italian		tarantula, tarantola. (various references)

Manx		tarantool. (various references)

Maya		chiiwol. (various references)

Papago		hiani. (various references)

Pig Latin		arantulatay.(various references)

Portuguese		tarântula. (various references)

Russian		тарантул. (various references)

Sepedi		mmantlo. (various references)

Serbo-Croatian		tarantula. (various references)

Spanish		tarantula, tarántula. (various references)

Swedish		tarantel. (various references)

Thai		แมงมุมพิษตัวใหญ่ในตระกูล Theraphosidae. (various references)

Turkish		tarantula, zehirli örümcek (black widow). (various references)

Ukranian		тарантул. (various references)

Yucatec		chiwol, chinwol. (various references)
Source: compiled by the editor from various translation references.

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Derivations & Misspellings: Tarantula

Derivations
	Words beginning with "tarantula": tarantulae, tarantulas. (additional references)
Misspellings
	"Tarantula" is suggested in spellcheckers for the following: Harantova, tarantalla, tarrantula, terantula, terrantula, trainful, trantula. (additional references)
Source: compiled by the editor, based on several corpora (additional references).

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Rhyming with "Tarantula"

# of Phoneme Matches	Pronunciation	Word(s) rhyming with "tarantula" (pronounced tura"nkhuwlu or tura"nkhulu)
3	-u l u	curricula, diverticula, fibula, formula, gondola, hyperbola, nebula, parabola, peninsula, scapula.
Source: compiled by the editor (additional references); see credits.

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Anagrams: Tarantula

Scrabble® Enable2K-Verified Anagrams
	Words within the letters "a-a-a-l-n-r-t-t-u"
	-1 letter: tarlatan.
	-2 letters: natural, tantara, tartana, tuatara.
	-3 letters: antral, anural, ranula, rattan, tantra, tarnal, tartan, truant.
	-4 letters: alant, altar, antra, artal, attar, aural, lauan, laura, lunar, natal, ratal, ratan, ruana, talar, tatar, taunt, ulnar, ultra.
	-5 letters: alan, alar, anal, anta, aunt, aura, luna, lunt, nurl, rant, runt, tala, tarn, tart, taut, tuna, turn, ulan, ulna.
	Words containing the letters "a-a-a-l-n-r-t-t-u"
	+1 letter: tarantulae, tarantulas.
	+2 letters: antinatural.
	+3 letters: maturational, salutatorian, transnatural, transvaluate.
	+4 letters: astronautical, salutatorians, transvaluated, transvaluates, ultramarathon, ultrarational.
	+5 letters: latitudinarian, naturalization, transvaluating, transvaluation, ultramarathons, untranslatable.
Source: compiled by the editor from various references; see credits. SCRABBLE® is a registered trademark. All intellectual property rights in and to the game are owned in the U.S.A and Canada by Hasbro Inc., and throughout the rest of the world by J.W. Spear & Sons Limited of Maidenhead, Berkshire, England, a subsidiary of Mattel Inc. Mattel and Spear are not affiliated with Hasbro.