weave [OE] English has two words spelled weave. The one meaning ‘twist from side to side’ probably comes from Old Norse veifa ‘to wave, brandish’. The other one is Old English and comes from an ancient root shared by Sanskrit ūrnavābhi ‘spider’, or literally ‘wool-weaver’. Web is a related word, first recorded in about ad 725. The World Wide Web was first mentioned in writing in 1990, in a paper by Tim Berners-Lee and Robert Cailliau, who are credited with its invention.