wasp
(noun) social or solitary hymenopterans typically having a slender body with the abdomen attached by a narrow stalk and having a formidable sting
WASP, white Anglo-Saxon Protestant
(noun) a white person of Anglo-Saxon ancestry who belongs to a Protestant denomination
Source: WordNet® 3.1
wasp (plural wasps)
Any of many types of stinging flying insect resembling a hornet.
(entomology) Any of the members of suborder Apocrita, excepting the ants (family Formicidae) and bees (clade Anthophila).
Any of the members of the family Vespidae.
A person who behaves in an angry or insolent way, hence waspish.
Originally an acronym for White Anglo-Saxon Protestant.
wasp (plural wasps)
Alternative letter-case form of WASP (“White Anglo-Saxon Protestant”)
• APWs, AWPs, WSPA, paws, spaw, swap, waps
WASP (plural WASPs)
A member of the dominant American upper-class culture: a white Anglo-Saxon Protestant.
A member of the Women Airforce Service Pilots.
• See white person
• APWs, AWPs, WSPA, paws, spaw, swap, waps
Source: Wiktionary
Wasp, n. Etym: [OE. waspe, AS. wæps, wæfs; akin to D. wesp, G. wespe, OHG. wafsa, wefsa, Lith. vapsa gadfly, Russ. osa wasp, L. vespa, and perhaps to E. weave.] (Zoöl.)
Definition: Any one of numerous species of stinging hymenopterous insects, esp. any of the numerous species of the genus Vespa, which includes the true, or social, wasps, some of which are called yellow jackets.
Note: The social wasps make a complex series of combs, of a substance like stiff paper, often of large size, and protect them by a paperlike covering. The larvæ are reared in the cells of the combs, and eat insects and insect larvæ brought to them by the adults, but the latter feed mainly on the honey and pollen of flowers, and on the sweet juices of fruit. See Illust. in Appendix. Digger wasp, any one of numerous species of solitary wasps that make their nests in burrows which they dig in the ground, as the sand wasps. See Sand wasp, under Sand.
– Mud wasp. See under Mud.
– Potter wasp. See under Potter.
– Wasp fly, a species of fly resembling a wasp, but without a sting.
Source: Webster’s Unabridged Dictionary 1913 Edition
24 December 2024
(adverb) in an intuitive manner; “inventors seem to have chosen intuitively a combination of explosive and aggressive sounds as warning signals to be used on automobiles”
The word “coffee” entered the English language in 1582 via the Dutch “koffie,” borrowed from the Ottoman Turkish “kahve,” borrowed in turn from the Arabic “qahwah.” The Arabic word qahwah was traditionally held to refer to a type of wine.
