redback
nounEtymology Modelled after greenback, the currency of the United States of America, except using Communist Red
1
Slang the yuan (CNY), the currency of the People's Republic of China (Red Chinese money)
- Coordinate terms
- red chip
redback
nounEtymology From red + back.
1
Australia A venomous spider, Latrodectus hasselti, endemic to Australia.
- 1988 June 16, Stephanie Pain, Things that go plop in the night, New Scientist, page 78, “If you find a redback, squash it firmly,” advised one guide.
- Many a red-back, funnel-web, or other spider has found its resting days at the bottom of a vegemite jar shoved into some dark recess of the laundry.1996, James Lambert, The Macquarie Book of Slang, Sydney: Macquarie Library, page 254:
3 more examples
- 2005 October, Martha Harrison, Brilliant 10: Marydianne Andrade, Popular Science, page 58, Andrade first encountered the redback— whose lethal bite gives it as infamous a reputation in Australia as the black widow enjoys here in North America—when her grad-school adviser asked to travel to go to Perth to study them.
- Easily identified by a red, orange or brownish stripe on the abdomen, Redbacks are responsible for by far the most spider bites in Australia.2007, Steve Backshall, Steve Backshall's Venom: Poisonous Animals in the Natural World, page 114:
- The only truly dangerous Australian spiders are funnelwebs and redbacks but, these days, deaths of people from these spiders seem to be a thing of the past since antivenom is now available.2012, Peter Macinnis, Australian Backyard Naturalist, page 55:
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US A brown and white sandpiper (Calidris alpina), native to the Northern Hemisphere; the dunlin.
- Synonyms
- redback spider
- Related terms
- black widow, katipo