wasp
Part of speech: noun
verb
Morphological type: simple
Topics: biology
entomology
natural-sciences
Etymology: Etymology tree
Proto-Indo-European *webʰ-
Proto-Indo-European *wóbʰseh₂
Proto-Germanic *wapsō
Proto-West Germanic *wapsu
Old English wæps
Middle English wasp
English wasp
Inherited from Middle English wappes, waps, wasp, waspe, from Old English wæfs, wæps, wæsp, from Proto-West Germanic *wapsu, from Proto-Germanic *wapsō (“wasp”), from Proto-Indo-European *wóbʰseh₂ (“wasp”), from *webʰ- (“to braid, weave”), referring to the insect's woven nests.
Cognates
Cognate with North Frisian wesp (“wasp”), Saterland Frisian Häspe (“wasp”), West Frisian waps (“wasp”), Alemannic German Wespi (“wasp”), Bavarian Weps, Wepsn (“wasp”), Cimbrian bèspa (“wasp”), Dutch and Vilamovian wesp (“wasp”), German Wespe (“wasp”), Low German Weps, Wepse (“wasp”), Yiddish וועספּ (vesp), וועספּע (vespe, “wasp”), Danish hveps (“wasp”), Norwegian Bokmål veps (“wasp”), Norwegian Nynorsk kvefs (“wasp”); also Cornish goghi (“wasp”), Irish foich, foiche, puch (“wasp”), Welsh gwchi (“drone”), Latin vespa (“wasp”), Greek ανυφαίνω (anyfaíno), υφαίνω (yfaíno, “to weave”), Albanian vej (“to weave”), Latvian lapsene (“wasp”), Lithuanian vapsvà (“wasp”), Old Prussian wobse (“wasp”), Belarusian аса́ (asá, “wasp”), Bulgarian, Macedonian, Russian, and Ukrainian оса́ (osá, “wasp”), Czech vosa (“wasp”), Polish, Slovene, and Slovak osa (“wasp”), Serbo-Croatian о̀са, òsa (“wasp”), Armenian մոզ (moz, “a kind of fly that bites horses and cattle”), Avestan 𐬬𐬀𐬡𐬲𐬀𐬐𐬀 (vaβžaka, “scorpion”), Central Kurdish مۆز (moz, “gadfly, horsefly”), Mazanderani ماز (mâz, “fly”), Northern Kurdish moz (“wasp; gadfly, horsefly; bee; bumblebee”), Persian بوز (bavz / bowz, “wasp”), Tocharian A wäp- (“to weave”), Tocharian B wāp- (“to weave”), Sanskrit उभ्नाति (ubhnāti, “to hurt, kill; to cover”).
Metathesis of /s/ and /p/ was both a process of some generality within English (compare grasp from Middle English grapsen, and—affecting other plosives—ascian ~ acsian (“to ask”)) and common in the reflexes of *wóps-eh₂ (“wasp”) in particular, as the aforementioned Germanic cognates (and non-Germanic cognates like Latin vespa) evince.
Inflected forms:
form: wasps
pos: noun
tags: plural
form: waps
pos: noun
tags: alternative
form: wasps
pos: verb
tags: present
singular
third-person
form: wasping
pos: verb
tags: participle
present
form: wasped
pos: verb
tags: participle
past
form: wasped
pos: verb
tags: past
form: waps
pos: verb
tags: alternative
Senses:
gloss: Any of many types of stinging flying insect resembling a hornet.
pos: noun
gloss: Any of the members of suborder Apocrita, excepting the ants (family Formicidae) and bees (clade Anthophila).
pos: noun
gloss: Any of the members of suborder Apocrita, excepting the ants (family Formicidae) and bees (clade Anthophila).
pos: noun
gloss: A person who behaves in an angry or insolent way, hence waspishly.
pos: noun
gloss: To move like a wasp; to buzz.
pos: verb
Derived words: red wasp
waspie
wasplike
Wasps Nest
wasp spider
wasp waist
wasp-waisted
baeine wasp
bone-house wasp
braconine wasp
chalcid wasp
cockroach wasp
common wasp
cuckoo wasp
digger wasp
encyrtid wasp
ensign wasp
Euro wasp
fig wasp
crown wasp
gall wasp
German wasp
gold wasp
honey wasp
horse guard wasp
ichneumon wasp
jewel wasp
leaf wasp
long-tailed wasp
mason wasp
media wasp
median wasp
mole cricket wasp
mud wasp
mutillid wasp
oak rough bulletgall wasp
paper wasp
parasitoid wasp
pelecinid wasp
platygastrid wasp
pollen wasp
potter wasp
ringed paper wasp
sand wasp
scelionid wasp
scolliid wasp
sea wasp
social wasp
solitary wasp
soul-sucking wasp
spider wasp
spider-hunting wasp
stephanid wasp
tiphiid wasp
two-spotted scoliid wasp
vespid wasp
vespoid wasp
umbrella wasp
warrior wasp
wasp beetle
wasp moth
wasp-nest beetle
wood wasp
waspish
waspy
Translations: