redback

plural redbacks · alternative red-back · alternative red back

1. AustraliaA 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.

   4 more examples

   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

   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

   Synonyms: redback spider

2. USA brown and white sandpiper (Calidris alpina), native to the Northern Hemisphere; the dunlin.

plural redbacks · alternative red-back · alternative red back

1. slangthe yuan (CNY), the currency of the People's Republic of China (Red Chinese money)