tarantula or not tarantula ?????????

[wesley flower]

i have never worked out why we all call spiders such as Theraphosidae tarantulas. when Lycosa is the true 'tarantula'. theraphosadae litterally means big hairy beast, and Avicularia literally means to eat birds, and
Ornithoctoninae means bird spiders. all of these have nothing in common with Lycosa spp. can someone please explain this to me.
many thank
wes

[Colin D Wilson]

Lycosa Tarantula is a common wolf spider in southern italy (species named after being widespread around the area of the city Taranto)
In the early days the bite of a L. tarantula was considered to be fatal (and cause tarantism) and so the bitten victim used to dance the Tarantella to purge the venom from the body by sweating, fever etc.
Through the ages the word tarantula has been adopted by many cultures to be the collective description of large spiders, this includes any spider large enough to have a fearsome appearance and, due to folk law, be able to give a fatal bite.
In reality it was the bite of the mediteranean black widow that many people died of, and through word of mouth from village to village the size of the spider grew and the time it took for the person to die shortened.