Nets, Webs and Traps

Nets and webs consist of connected strands with spaces between them. A trap is an arrangement that catches, confines or prevents escape. These terms overlap in some situations, but each identifies a different feature: a net describes a structure, a web emphasises interconnection, and a trap describes what an arrangement does.

A net can catch a falling person, collect fish or keep objects together. Its significance depends partly on what is caught, who arranged it and where the person is positioned. Being supported by a net and being unable to escape from one involve different relationships to the same kind of structure.

Types and Characteristics

• Fishing nets: Use mesh to collect or enclose fish. Their openings allow some objects to pass while retaining others.
• Safety nets: Provide a catching surface beneath a person or object that might fall.
• Cargo nets: Hold a group of objects together or secure them during movement.
• Spider webs: Silk structures with different arrangements of supporting and capture threads.
• Snares: Loops that can close around what enters them.
• Cage traps: Admit an animal into an enclosure whose entrance then closes.
• Pit traps: Use an opening or depression from which the captured animal cannot readily climb out.

The size of an opening, the tension of a strand and the position of a fastening can matter as much as the overall size of the structure. A mesh can be open to sight while still preventing passage.

In Nature

The Natural History Museum groups British spider webs into seven broad forms, including orb, sheet, tangle and funnel webs. An orb web has a conspicuous radial arrangement, while a funnel web combines a sheet with a tubular retreat. The museum describes these structures in relation to how spiders detect and capture prey. Natural History Museum: Spider Webs

The web also connects movement in one location with information elsewhere in the structure. Its strands form an arrangement through which disturbance can be transmitted.

Fables

In The Lion and the Mouse, a lion spares a mouse and later becomes entangled in hunters' cords. The mouse responds to his cries and gnaws through the fastening that holds him. In the edition linked here, the mouse works on a knot in the cord. Aesop: The Lion and the Mouse

The fable changes the relationship between the two animals. The lion's strength does not release him from this particular restraint, while the mouse can act on a part of it that is within its capacity to change. This is a reading of the events in the story, rather than a general rule about how restraints should be approached.

Idioms and Figurative Expressions

• Caught in a web: Involved in a complicated arrangement from which it is difficult to withdraw.
• A web of lies: False accounts that depend upon or support one another.
• Cast the net wider: Extend a search or consider a broader range of possibilities.
• Slip through the net: Escape detection or fail to receive attention from an intended system of support.
• A safety net: Support available if something goes wrong.
• Fall into a trap: Enter a situation that turns out to restrict or disadvantage oneself.
• Take the bait: Respond to an inducement or provocation as someone else intended.
• Caught in your own trap: Be disadvantaged by an arrangement made to catch someone else.
• Ensnared: Caught or entangled in a difficult situation or relationship.

Homophones and Wordplay

Knot / not: A knot joins or fastens material. Not negates a statement or possibility.

Net also describes what remains after deductions. Web can name an interconnected system of information as well as a structure of silk.

Related Pages

Ties and Binds, Containers, Falling, Pits, Holes and Trenches.

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