wasp

American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition

1. n. Any of numerous social or solitary insects, chiefly of the superfamilies Vespoidea and Sphecoidea, having a slender body with a constricted abdomen, two pairs of membranous wings, mouths adapted for biting or sucking, and in the females an ovipositor often modified as a sting.

Century Dictionary and Cyclopedia

1. n. Any one of several families, many genera, and very numerous species of aculeate hymenopterous insects, whose wings fold lengthwise in a peculiar manner when the insects rest, which insects are hence collectively called Diploptera. Most wasps dig holes for themselves, whence they are also called Fos-sores (though not all are fossorial). There are 13 families of wasps: namely, Scoliidæ, Sapygidæ, Pompilidæ, Sphecidie (or Sphegidæ), Larri dæ, Nyssonidæ, Bembecidæ, Philanthidæ, Pemphredonidæ, Crabronidæ, Masaridæ, Eumenidæ, and Vespidæ. The members of the first ten of these families are indiscriminately known as digger-wasps; those of the last three are wasps more strictly so called. The Masaridæ and Eumenidæ, like all the digger-wasps, are of solitary habits, and are hence known as solitary wasps (which see, under solitary). The Vespidæ alone are social wasps. These are also called paper-wasps, from the character of their nests, and include the various species of Vespa known as hornets. See, besides the family names, Agenia, Ammophila, Odynerus, Polistes, Sphecius, etc., dauber , mud-dauber, also digger-wasp, potter-wasp, sand-wasp, spider-wasp, wood-wasp, with numerous cuts.
2. n. Figuratively, a person characterized by ill nature, petulance, peevishness, irritability, or petty malignity.

Wiktionary

1. n. Any of many types of stinging flying insect resembling a hornet or bee.
2. n. A person who behaves in an angry or insolent way, hence waspish.
3. n. A member of the dominant American upper-class culture, a white Anglo-Saxon Protestant.

GNU Webster's 1913

1. n. (Zoöl.) 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.

WordNet 3.0

1. n. social or solitary hymenopterans typically having a slender body with the abdomen attached by a narrow stalk and having a formidable sting
2. n. a white person of Anglo-Saxon ancestry who belongs to a Protestant denomination