Definition of "cobweb"

[…] there was stretched across his gateway a circular cobweb of the largest kind and quite entire. This looked so ominous that I actually turned aside and went in the back way.

1865, Henry David Thoreau, chapter X, in Cape Cod, Provincetown, page 200

A cobweb, night-spun, hung in an insidious circle from branch to branch, facing her. Early as it was, its first victim struggled in its gummy meshes.

1907, Barbara Baynton, edited by Sally Krimmer and Alan Lawson, Human Toll (Portable Australian Authors: Barbara Baynton), St Lucia: University of Queensland Press, published 1980, page 286

The dust and cobwebs of that uncivil age.

a. 1587 (date written), Phillip Sidney [i.e., Philip Sidney], An Apologie for Poetrie. […], London: […] [James Roberts] for Henry Olney, […], published 1595; republished as Edward Arber, editor, An Apologie for Poetrie (English Reprints), London: [Alexander Murray & Son], 1 April 1868,

Once the cobwebs of a lack-lustre first half were blown away, Spurs were irresistible and Arsenal were simply unable to cope with the power of Mousa Dembele in midfield and the creation and running of Christian Eriksen and Dele Alli - combined with the inevitable goalscoring prowess of Kane.

2018 February 10, Phil McNulty, “Tottenham Hotspur 1 - 0 Arsenal”, in BBC‎

Entangled in the cobwebs of the schools.

1782–1785, William Cowper, “(please specify the page)”, in The Task, a Poem, […], London: […] J[oseph] Johnson; […]

I washed my face, trying to get the cobwebs of hard sex and an alcohol-induced sleep out of my head

2008, Burlan Eugene Ellison, The Ebony Coffin: A Jim Kirkwood Novel‎, page 98

Veyz mir, meaning something like “Oh . . my!,” was a Yiddish expression that I had not employed for a long, long time. Yet in the cobwebs of my memory, that expression was still lurking inside. How interesting!

2012, Stanley M. Bierman, Napoleon's Penis: Plus Other Engaging and Outrageous Tales‎, page 16