Tarantula
mid 16th century: from medieval Latin, from Old Italian tarantola ‘tarantula’, from the name of the seaport Taranto. Compare with tarantella and tarantism.
wiktionary
From Medieval Latin tarantula, from Old Italian tarantola, from Taranto(“seaport in southern Italy”), from Latin Tarentum(“Latin name of the town”), from Ancient Greek Τάρᾱς(Tárās, “Greek name of the town”) (compare Modern Greek Τάραντας(Tárantas) and Tarantino Tarde), [1] probably from Illyrian *darandos(“oak”).
Sense 3 (“Lycosa tarantula”) is the original sense of the word, and refers to the fact that the spider was common in the Apulia region where Taranto is located. [1] Sense 1 (“New World spider in the family Theraphosidae”), the main modern sense of the word, may have been a transferred use of Spanish tarántula(“tarantula (Lycosa tarantula)”) to describe large, hairy spiders found in the New World.
etymonline
tarantula (n.)
1560s, "wolf spider," (Lycos tarantula), from Medieval Latin tarantula, from Italian tarantola, from Taranto "Taranto," seaport city in southern Italy in the region where the spiders are frequently found, from Latin Tarentum, from Greek Taras (genitive Tarantos; perhaps from Illyrian darandos "oak"). Its bite is only slightly poisonous. Popularly applied to other great hairy spiders, especially the genus Mygale, native to the warmer regions of the Americas (first so called in 1794).
