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Origin and history of tarantula

tarantula(n.)

1560s, "wolf spider," (Lycos tarantula), from Medieval Latin tarantula, from Italian tarantola, from Taranto "Taranto," seaport city in southern Italy in the region where the spiders are frequently found, from Latin Tarentum, from Greek Taras (genitive Tarantos; perhaps from Illyrian darandos "oak").

Its bite is only slightly venomous. The English, not knowing the spiders at first-hand, sometimes in 17c. took the word to mean a type of lizard or other reptile. The name also was popularly applied to other great hairy spiders, especially the genus Mygale (by 1794), native to the warmer regions of the Americas. Also compare tarantella. Cowley ("Puritan and Papist") rhymes "tarantula" with "as much as they."

also from 1560s

Entries linking to tarantula

tarantella(n.)

1782, "peasant dance popular in Italy," a rapid, whirling dance for one couple; earlier "hysterical malady characterized by an extreme impulse to dance" (1630s). It was epidemic 15c.-17c. in Apulia and adjacent parts of southern Italy and was popularly attributed to (or believed to be a cure for) the bite of the tarantula.

This is likely folk-etymology, however, and the names of the dance and the spider more probably share an origin in Taranto, the name of a city in southern Italy (see tarantula). The word was used in English by 1833 for the style of music that accompanies the peasant dance; it is usually in 6/8 time with whirling triplets and abrupt major-minor modulations. Related: Tarantism. The dance-bitten are tarantati (fem. tarantate).

Those who were bitten generally fell into a state of melancholy, and appeared to be stupified, and scarcely in possession of their senses. This condition was, in many cases, united with so great a sensibility to music, that at the very first tones of their favourite melodies, they sprang up, shouting for joy, and danced on without intermission, until they sank to the ground exhausted and almost lifeless. [Babington's translation of J.F.C. Hecker, "The Epidemics of the Middle Ages," London, 1859]
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    The bird-spider (1800) of the American tropics is a large sort of tarantula that can capture and kill small birds....
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    late 14c., spydyr, spither, earlier spiþre, spiþur, spiþer (mid-14c.), from Old English spiðra, from Proto-Germanic *spin-thron- (cognate with Danish spinder), etymologically "spinner," from PIE root *(s)pen- "to draw, stretch, spin" + formative or agential *-thro. The connection
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    Old English wulf "wolf, wolfish person, devil," from Proto-Germanic *wulfaz (source also of Old Saxon wulf, Old Norse ulfr, Old Frisian, Dutch, Old High German, German wolf, Gothic wulfs), from PIE root *wlkwo- "wolf" (source also of Sanskrit vrkas, Avestan vehrka-; Albanian ul'k
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    theme
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    "a part or portion," Middle English del, from from Old English dæl "a part of a whole, a share;" with qualification (great, etc.), "an extent, degree, quantity, amount," from Proto-Germanic *dailaz (source also of Old Norse deild, Old Frisian del "part; juridical district," Dutch
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