How to say "spider" in Japanese

• くもCommon
  nounThe common word for the animal itself: the eight-legged creature that spins webs. Usually written in kana alone, and the default choice whenever you mean an actual spider.
  大おおきな蜘蛛くもが巣すを作つくっていた。↗

  A big spider was spinning a web.
• スパイダー
  nounThe loanword 'spider', a less common alternative to くも for the animal. It is seldom the word you want in ordinary talk about spiders; くも is the usual term.
  私の好すきな曲きょくはハングリー・スパイダーです。↗

  My favorite song is Hungry Spider.
• クローラー
  nounNot the animal: this is the internet sense of 'spider', a program that crawls the web, visiting and indexing pages. Use it when talking about web crawlers in computing contexts.
• ロボット検索エンジンロボットけんさくエンジン
  nounLiterally 'robot search engine': a term for a web crawler, the 'spider' program that automatically traverses and indexes web pages. It belongs to internet terminology, not to the animal.
• ロボット型検索エンジンロボットがたけんさくエンジン
  nounThe same idea with 型 ('type'): a crawler-type search engine, one that sends out a spider program to gather web pages. Essentially interchangeable with ロボット検索エンジン, and never a word for the animal.

Use 「くも」 for the animal; 「スパイダー」 is a less common loanword for it; 「クローラー」, 「ロボット検索エンジン」 and 「ロボット型検索エンジン」 all refer to the internet 'spider', a program that crawls and indexes web pages.

Usage comparisons are AI-assisted and cross-checked by multiple models; for study reference only

• くもspider
• スパイダーspider
• クローラー(web) crawler
• ロボット検索エンジンロボットけんさくエンジンweb crawler
• ロボット型検索エンジンロボットがたけんさくエンジンweb crawler