Etymologically
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wasp

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Pronunciation

Etymology

It is inherited from Middle English waspe,[2][3][4] inherited from Old English wæps, also wæfs and wæsp,[5][6][7][8] from Proto-Germanic *wapsō (“wasp”).[1] The forms with p are probably due to the influence of Latin vespa (“wasp”),[7][6] while Ayto and Dictionary.com explain wæsp from wæps by metathesis.[9][10] It is related to Old Saxon wespa, Dutch wesp, Old High German wafsa and German Wespe;[5][6][8][2] the word is not found in Gothic, and the Scandinavian forms such as Danish hveps were taken from Low German.[5] The Indo-European source, Proto-Indo-European *wóbʰseh₂ (“wasp”),[1] also gave the Latin word, with a different ablaut grade,[5] as well as Lithuanian vapsvà, Russian оса (osa) and Old Irish foich (“drone”).[8][2][6][1] It is usually taken to come from *webʰ- (“to weave”), the source of weave and web, from the papery nests that the insects build;[5][8][2][9][11] Etymonline gives this derivation, after Watkins, only as a possibility.[6] Latin vespa became French guêpe, whose initial consonant the OED puts down to the influence of the Germanic word.[5]

Earliest recorded meaning

The stinging insect: in Old English, first in the Corpus Glossary.[5] Barnhart dates the Old English word to about 700, and the Middle English form to 1373.[7]

Semantic evolution

From the early 16th century the insect's name was applied to irritable, spiteful people, first in William Dunbar's Flyting;[5][6] from 1588 it also meant anything that irritates or offends.[5] The adjective waspish, irascible or spiteful, is recorded from 1566.[7][8] In 18th-century cant a wasp was a prostitute with a venereal disease, "who like the wasp carries a sting in her tail", in the words of Grose's manuscript additions of about 1786.[12] Later uses include a fishing fly made to look like a wasp (1867), a kind of cowrie (1815) and a British flame-thrower of the Second World War (1944).[5] The verb, to sting like a wasp, was a nonce-word of Landor's in 1846; since 1967 it has meant to dart about irritatingly.[5] In Irish slang a traffic warden is a wasp, from the black and yellow uniform.[12] The English Dialect Dictionary records many dialect forms, such as waps, wops and wopse.[13]

Timeline

  • c. 700 – Old English, the stinging insect.[7][5]
  • 1373 – Middle English form.[7]
  • before 1513 – an irritable, spiteful person.[5][6]
  • 1566 – waspish, irascible.[7]
  • 1588 – something that irritates or offends.[5]
  • c. 1786 – slang, a diseased prostitute.[12]
  • 1815 – a kind of cowrie.[5]
  • 1846 – verb, to sting like a wasp.[5]
  • 1867 – an artificial fly for salmon fishing.[5]
  • 1944 – a British flame-thrower.[5]

Meanings

Noun

  1. Any of many winged insects with a slender body joined to the abdomen by a narrow stalk and, in the females, a sting, especially the black-and-yellow social kinds that build papery nests: A wasp crawled into his lemonade.[3][14][5]
  2. An irascible or spiteful person.[5]
  3. Something that irritates or offends.[5]

Verb

  1. To dart about irritatingly, like a wasp.[5]

Word family

  • wasplike
  • waspish
  • waspy
  • wasp waist
  • cuckoo wasp
  • digger wasp
  • fig wasp
  • gall wasp

Usage notes

Written WASP or Wasp, the word is an acronym of White Anglo-Saxon Protestant: Etymonline dates it by 1955,[6] Merriam-Webster to 1957,[3] Barnhart to 1960[7] and the OED to 1962,[5] while Green's Dictionary of Slang quotes it from 1948.[12] In the United States WASP was also the name of the Women's Airforce Service Pilots, recorded from 1943.[5][3] The related adjective from Latin is vespine.[14]

References

  1. ^ a b c d e Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
  2. ^ a b c d Klein, Ernest. A Comprehensive Etymological Dictionary of the English Language. 2 vols. Amsterdam: Elsevier, 1966–1967.
  3. ^ a b c d Merriam-Webster Unabridged Dictionary (2024), online ed., Springfield, Mass.: Merriam-Webster
  4. ^ The American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language (online 2024), 5th ed., Boston: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt
  5. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m n o p q r s t u v w x Oxford English Dictionary Online (accessed March 2026), Oxford: Oxford University Press
  6. ^ a b c d e f g h Harper, Douglas. Online Etymology Dictionary, https://www.etymonline.com
  7. ^ a b c d e f g h Barnhart, Robert K. (1988), The Barnhart Dictionary of Etymology
  8. ^ a b c d e Hoad, T. F., ed. (1986), The Concise Oxford Dictionary of English Etymology, Oxford: Clarendon Press
  9. ^ a b Ayto, John (2005), Word Origins: The Secret Histories of English Words from A to Z, 2nd ed., London: A & C Black
  10. ^ Dictionary.com Unabridged (2016), based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, New York: Random House
  11. ^ Cresswell, Julia (2021), Oxford Dictionary of Word Origins, 3rd ed., Oxford: Oxford University Press
  12. ^ a b c d Green, Jonathon (2010), Green's Dictionary of Slang, London: Chambers; digital ed. 2016–, https://greensdictofslang.com
  13. ^ Wright, Joseph, ed. (1898–1905), The English Dialect Dictionary, 6 vols., Oxford: Henry Frowde; via EDD Online 4.0, University of Innsbruck (CC BY 4.0)
  14. ^ a b Collins English Dictionary (2023), Glasgow: HarperCollins