wasp

• (Received Pronunciation) IPA^(key): /wɒsp/
• (General American) IPA^(key): /wɑsp/
• (African-American Vernacular) IPA^(key): /waps/ (Can we verify⁽⁺⁾ this pronunciation?)
• (obsolete) IPA^(key): /wæsp/^[1]

• Audio (US):

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• Rhymes: -ɒsp

Inherited from Middle English wasp, waspe, waps, from Old English wæsp, wæps, from Proto-West Germanic *wapsu, from Proto-Germanic *wapsō, from Proto-Indo-European *wóbʰseh₂ (“wasp”), from *webʰ- (“to weave”), referring to the insect's woven nests.

Compare Dutch wesp, German Wespe, Danish hveps. 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.

• waps (dialectal, chiefly African-American Vernacular and UK)

wasp (plural wasps)

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

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”).

• WSPA, Spaw, spaw, WAPs, paws, APWs, PWAs, waps, AWPs, waps., PAWS, swap

• wappes, waps, waspe

Inherited from Old English wæps, wæsp; from Proto-West Germanic *wapsu, from Proto-Germanic *wapsō, from Proto-Indo-European *wóbʰseh₂.

• IPA^(key): /wasp/

wasp (plural waspes)

1. wasp

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