wasp

• (Received Pronunciation) IPA^(key): /wɒsp/
• (General American) IPA^(key): /wɑsp/
• (obsolete) IPA^(key): /wæsp/[1]

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• Rhymes: -ɒsp, -ɑsp

a wasp

From Middle English wasp, waspe, waps, from Old English wæsp, wæps (“wasp”), from Proto-West Germanic *wapsu, from Proto-Germanic *wapsō, from Proto-Indo-European *wobʰseh₂ (“wasp”), from *webʰ- (“weave”) (referring to the insect's woven nests).

Compare Dutch wesp, German Wespe, Danish hveps. The metathesis of s and p reflects a process of some generality in Old English, cf. ascian ~ acsian (“to ask”); here, Latin vespa (“wasp”) (also a cognate- cf. Old French wespe) may have helped tilt the scales in favour of -sp. (Can this⁽⁺⁾ etymology be sourced?)

wasp (plural wasps)

1. Any of many types of stinging flying insect resembling a hornet.
2. (entomology) Any of the members of suborder Apocrita, excepting the ants (family Formicidae) and bees (clade Anthophila).
   1. Any of the members of the family Vespidae.
3. A person who behaves in an angry or insolent way, hence waspish.

• Sranan Tongo: waswasi (reduplicated)

wasp (third-person singular simple present wasps, present participle wasping, simple past and past participle wasped)

1. To move like a wasp; to buzz

• bee
• hornet

wasp (plural wasps)

1. Alternative letter-case form of WASP (“white Anglo-Saxon Protestant”)

• waspy, waspish, waspishly, waspishness

• APWs, AWPs, WAPs, WSPA, paws, spaw, swap, waps

• wappes, waps, waspe

From Old English wæps, wæsp, from Proto-West Germanic *wapsu, from Proto-Germanic *wapsō, from Proto-Indo-European *wobʰséh₂.

• IPA^(key): /wasp/

wasp (plural waspes)

1. wasp

• English: wasp
  • Sranan Tongo: waswasi (reduplicated)
• Scots: wasp, wesp

• “wasp, n.”, in MED Online, Ann Arbor, Mich.: University of Michigan, 2007, retrieved 2018-07-17.