tarantula

Other forms of tarantula

plural

tarantulae

Forms marked · are formed by the regular rule rather than recorded in the source data. English keeps a few hundred irregulars and the rest follow the pattern, so the rule is right far more often than not — but it is a rule, and the mark says so.

Questions about tarantula

What does tarantula mean?

tarantula means "large southern European spider once thought to be the cause of tarantism (uncontrollable bodily movement)". That is the primary sense; the word has 2 in total, listed in full on this page.

How many syllables are in tarantula?

tarantula has 4 syllables: ta-ran-tu-la. The stress falls on "ran". In IPA it is /təˈɹæntʃulə/.

What is another word for tarantula?

Close synonyms include European wolf spider, Lycosa tarentula. Each sense on this page lists its own synonyms, because a word with several meanings rarely has one substitute that works for all of them.

Is tarantula a common word?

tarantula is banded "Uncommon" — turns up in careful writing rather than conversation. The band comes from how often the word appears in a large corpus of everyday English, not from an editor's impression.