Old English webb "woven fabric, woven work, tapestry," from Proto-Germanic *wabjam "fabric, web" (source also of Old Saxon webbi, Old Norse vefr, Dutch webbe, Old High German weppi, German gewebe "web"), from PIE *(h)uebh- "to weave" (see weave (v.)).

Meaning "spider's web" is first recorded early 13c. Applied to the membranes between the toes of ducks and other aquatic birds from 1570s. Internet sense is from 1992, shortened from World Wide Web (1990). Web browser, web page both also attested 1990.

1640s, earlier spider's web (1530s), from spider + web (n.).

1660s, from web.

1993, from web in the internet sense + master (n.).

also web site, 1994, from web in the internet sense + site.

"a weaver," Old English webbestre "a female weaver," from web (q.v.) + fem. suffix -ster. Noah Webster's dictionary, typically American and execrable for etymology, was first published 1828.

"online journal," 1998, short for weblog (which is attested from 1993 but in the sense "file containing a detailed record of each request received by a web server"), from (World Wide) Web (n.) + log (n.2). Joe Bloggs (c. 1969) was British slang for "any hypothetical person" (compare U.S. equivalent Joe Blow); earlier blog meant "a servant boy" in one of the college houses (c. 1860, see Partridge, who describes this use as a "perversion of bloke"), and, as a verb, "to defeat" in schoolboy slang. The Blogger online publishing service was launched in 1999.

social networking Web site, founded in late 2003 and dominant from 2005 to 2009.

also mesh-work, "a network, a web, a plexus," 1830, from mesh (n.) + work (n.). Compare network.

"net, snare," 1520s, from French toile "hunting net, cloth, web" (compare toile d'araignée "cobweb"), from Old French toile "cloth" (11c.), from Latin tela "web, net, warp of a fabric," from PIE root *teks- "to weave," also "to fabricate." Now used largely in plural (as in caught in the toils of the law).