Jorōgumo (spider woman)
The jorōgumo is a spider yōkai: a spider that can turn into a woman, or a spider-woman who controls small spiders. It is also the Japanese name of a real spider, the joro spider now spreading in the United States.
Meaning
Jorōgumo is written 女郎蜘蛛, and also 絡新婦. Shogakukan’s Digital Daijisen Plus describes it as a Japanese yōkai told of in different forms in different places: a spider that can disguise itself as a woman, or a spider-woman who controls small spiders. The word is first of all a spider’s name. The Nihon Kokugo Daijiten defines jorōgumo as an orb-weaving spider whose female, 20 to 27 millimetres long, has a yellow back banded blue-green and a large crimson mark low on each side, and whose small yellow-brown male looks like a different species; its earliest record is the Kinmō zui of 1666. That spider was introduced to the United States in 2013 and is spreading across the Southeast. Nathan Morehouse, a biologist at the University of Cincinnati, told Parade magazine that it takes its name from the yōkai: “Jorōgumo are shapeshifting spiders that can turn into beautiful women to ensnare and eat young men.”
Origin and history
The dictionary gives a third sense that explains the name. From the image of a spider spreading its net to catch customers, jorōgumo was used for the women of the pleasure quarters themselves; its first example is from the 1682 novel Kōshoku ichidai otoko. Morehouse translates the other spelling, 絡新婦, as “entangling bride”.
Spiders as goblins
Henri Joly, in 1908, lists the spiders that become goblins after dark: the flat spider, the earth spider, the long-legged spider and the trap-door spider. Spiders, he writes, are emblems of craft, generally magical craft. The giant spider of Japanese art is a different creature, the tsuchigumo or earth spider in its cave, killed by the warrior Raikō and his retainers: the National Diet Library counts Tsuchigumo the Spider among the episodes of Minamoto no Yorimitsu and his Four Heavenly Kings that ukiyo-e often show. The jorōgumo is the spider that becomes a woman. Spiders in other traditions are on the spider page.
Read next
- Next in Yōkai and creatures of Japanese folkloreTenguTengu are the goblins of Japan’s mountains and forests: bird-like at first, with wings and a beak, and later long-nosed, red-faced men in the dress of mountain ascetics, with a feather fan. Some count them as the kami of the mountains.
- The spider that becomes a woman beside the spider in other traditionsSpider symbolismIn British and American folklore it is unlucky to kill a spider, and a small one on your clothes means money or a letter. In stories the spider is a weaver and a bringer: Arachne in Ovid, Spider Woman in Diné (Navajo) tradition, the Cherokee Water Spider who brought fire, and Anansi of the Gold Coast and Jamaica.
See also
Kitsune (fox), Tanuki (raccoon dog), Bakeneko and nekomata (cat yōkai), Kappa, Oni (and the oni mask), Yuki-onna (snow woman).
Sources
- 女郎蜘蛛 (Kotobank: Digital Daijisen Plus and Nihon Kokugo Daijiten), Kotobank, “女郎蜘蛛”: Shogakukan, Digital Daijisen Plus; Shogakukan, Seisenban Nihon Kokugo Daijiten, Shogakukan (via Kotobank), Digital Daijisen Plus; Seisenban Nihon Kokugo Daijiten
- Parade: What are Joro spiders? (University of Cincinnati), Michael Miller, “Parade: They’re big! They’re spreading! Should we be afraid of Joro spiders?”, UC News, University of Cincinnati, March 2022, University of Cincinnati, article text
- Henri L. Joly, Legend in Japanese Art (1908), Henri L. Joly, Legend in Japanese Art: A Description of Historical Episodes, Legendary Characters, Folk-lore, Myths, Religious Symbolism Illustrated in the Arts of Old Japan, London: John Lane, 1908, John Lane (Internet Archive, University of Toronto copy), “Bakemono”, p. 16; “Spiders”, p. 4
- TORIYAMA Sekien’s Illustrated Night Parade of the Demon Horde (NDL Image Bank), National Diet Library, NDL Image Bank, Columns: “TORIYAMA Sekien’s Illustrated Night Parade of the Demon Horde”, National Diet Library, Japan, “Kidōmaru”
The same shape elsewhere
Browse symbols formed from circles or lines.
Researched, edited and approved by Rory Hansen before publishing. Last reviewed October 10, 2026. How we research
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