spider crab

American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition

1. n. Any of various crabs, such as those of the genera Libinia and Macrocheira, having long legs and a relatively small triangular body.

Century Dictionary and Cyclopedia

1. n. A spider-like crab, or sea-spider, with long slender legs and comparatively small triangular body. The name is given to many such crabs, of different families, but especiallyto the maioids, or crabs of the family Maiidæ, such as Maia, squinado, the common spinous spider-crab of Great Britain, and species of Libinia, Inachus, etc. The giant Japanese spider-crab, Macrochira kaempferi, is the largest crustacean. See cuts Under Leptopodia, Lithodes, Maia, and Oxyrhyncha.

Wiktionary

1. n. Any of various species of crab of the family Majidae with long legs.

GNU Webster's 1913

1. n. (Zoöl.) any one of numerous species of maioid crabs having a more or less triangular body and ten long legs. Some of the species grow to great size, as the great Japanese spider crab (Macrocheira Kempferi), measuring sometimes more than fifteen feet across the legs when they are extended.

WordNet 3.0

1. n. any of numerous crabs with very long legs and small triangular bodies