What is "wasp"

Wasp \Wasp\, n. [OE. waspe, AS. w[ae]ps, w[ae]fs; akin to D. wesp, G. wespe, OHG. wafsa, wefsa, Lith. vapsa gadfly, Russ. osa wasp, L. vespa, and perhaps to E. weave.] (Zo["o]l.) 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.

Note: The social wasps make a complex series of combs, of a substance like stiff paper, often of large size, and protect them by a paperlike covering. The larv[ae] are reared in the cells of the combs, and eat insects and insect larv[ae] brought to them by the adults, but the latter feed mainly on the honey and pollen of flowers, and on the sweet juices of fruit. See Illust. in Appendix.

Digger wasp, any one of numerous species of solitary wasps that make their nests in burrows which they dig in the ground, as the sand wasps. See Sand wasp, under Sand.

Mud wasp. See under Mud.

Potter wasp. See under Potter.

Wasp fly, a species of fly resembling a wasp, but without a sting.

acronym for White Anglo-Saxon Protestant, by 1955.

Old English wæps, wæsp "wasp," altered (probably by influence of Latin vespa) from Proto-Germanic *wabis- (cognates: Old Saxon waspa, Middle Dutch wespe, Dutch wesp, Old High German wafsa, German Wespe, Danish hveps), from PIE *wopsa-/*wospa- "wasp" (cognates: Latin vespa, Lithuanian vapsa, Old Church Slavonic vosa "wasp," Old Irish foich "drone"), perhaps from *webh- "weave" (see weave (v.)). If that is the correct derivation, the insect would be so called for the shape of its nest. Of persons with wasp-like tendencies, from c.1500. Wasp-waist in reference to women's figures is recorded from 1870 (wasp-waisted is from 1775).

Etymology 1 n. 1 Any of many types of stinging flying insect resembling a hornet or bee. 2 A person who behaves in an angry or insolent way, hence waspish. Etymology 2

n. A member of the dominant American upper-class culture, a white Anglo-Saxon Protestant.

Wasp (Janet van Dyne) is a fictional superheroine appearing in American comic books published by Marvel Comics. Created by Stan Lee and Jack Kirby, the character first appeared in Tales to Astonish #44 (June 1963). She is usually depicted as having the ability to shrink to a height of several centimeters, fly by means of insectoid wings, and fire bioelectric energy blasts. She is a founding member of the Avengers as well as a long time leader of the team.

In May 2011, the Wasp placed 99th on IGN's Top 100 Comic Book Heroes of All Time, and 26th in their list of "The Top 50 Avengers" in 2012. The character was also ranked 94th in Comics Buyer's Guide's "100 Sexiest Women in Comics" list. In 2013, she was ranked the fifth greatest Avenger of all time by Marvel.com.

The character makes a cameo appearance in the 2015 film Ant-Man.

A wasp is a type of flying insect.

A common meaning of WASP is White Anglo-Saxon Protestant.

Wasp or WASP may also refer to:

Wasp is a short film (26 minutes) written and directed by Andrea Arnold. Released in 2003, it stars Natalie Press as a struggling single mother determined not to let her four young children prove an obstacle in the pursuit of rekindling a relationship with an old ex-boyfriend Danny Dyer. Dartford (Arnold's hometown) is the setting.

It is available on the Cinema 16: World Short Films and Cinema 16: European Short Films (US Special Edition) DVDs, and as a bonus feature on the Fish Tank DVD in the UK.

WASP (1130 AM) was a radio station formerly licensed to Brownsville, Pennsylvania, USA. It served the Pittsburgh area. The station was owned by Keymarket Licenses, LLC.

Wasp is a 1957 science fiction novel by English author Eric Frank Russell. Terry Pratchett (author of the Discworld series of fantasy books) stated that he "can't imagine a funnier terrorists' handbook." Wasp is generally considered Russell's best novel.

The title of Wasp comes from the idea that the main character's actions and central purpose mimic that particular insect; just as something as small as a wasp can terrorise a much larger creature in control of a car to the point of causing a crash and killing the occupants, so the defeat of an enemy may be wrought via psychological and guerrilla warfare by a small, but deadly, protagonist in their midst.

A wasp is any insect of the order Hymenoptera and suborder Apocrita that is neither a bee nor an ant. This means that wasps are paraphyletic with respect to bees and ants, and that all three groups are descended from a common ancestor; the Apocrita form a clade.

The most commonly known wasps, such as yellow jackets and hornets, are in the family Vespidae and are eusocial, living together in a nest with an egg-laying queen and non-reproducing workers. Eusociality is favoured by the unusual haplodiploid system of sex determination in Hymenoptera, as it makes sisters exceptionally closely related to each other. However, the majority of wasp species are solitary, with each adult female living and breeding independently. Many of the solitary wasps are parasitoidal, meaning that they raise their young by laying eggs on or in other insects (any life stage from egg to adult). Unlike true parasites, the wasp larvae eventually kill their hosts. Solitary wasps parasitize almost every pest insect, making wasps valuable in horticulture for biological pest control of species such as whitefly in tomatoes and other crops.

Wasps first appeared in the fossil record in the Jurassic, and diversified into many surviving superfamilies by the Cretaceous. They are a successful and diverse group of insects with tens of thousands of described species; wasps have spread to all parts of the world except for the polar regions. The largest social wasp is the Asian giant hornet, at up to in length; among the largest solitary wasps is the giant scoliid of Indonesia, Megascolia procer. The smallest wasps are solitary chalcid wasps in the family Mymaridae, including the world's smallest known insect, with a body length of only , and the smallest known flying insect, only long.

Wasps play many ecological roles. Some are predators, whether to feed themselves or to provision their nests. Many, notably the cuckoo wasps, are kleptoparasites, laying eggs in the nests of other wasps. Wasps have appeared in literature from Classical times, as the eponymous chorus of old men in Aristophanes' 422 BC comedy Σφῆκες (Sphēkes), The Wasps, and in science fiction from H. G. Wells's 1904 novel The Food of the Gods and How It Came to Earth, featuring giant wasps with three-inch-long stings. The name "Wasp" has been used for many warships and other military equipment.

Wasp was the fifth studio album released by teen-idol, Shaun Cassidy in 1980. In an attempt to salvage a sinking pop career, Cassidy recruited Todd Rundgren to help "reinvent" his music career. Members of Rundgren's group Utopia also played on the record and the work had a decidedly "new wave" feel.

The majority of tracks featured on Wasp were cover songs. The album featured a version of David Bowie's song, "Rebel Rebel" where Cassidy included a passage from The Crystals' "He's a Rebel." Other covers included Peter Townshend's " So Sad About Us," Ian Hunter's " Once Bitten, Twice Shy," the Talking Heads' "The Book I Read," The Animals' 1965 hit " It's My Life," and The Four Tops' 1966 hit " Shake Me, Wake Me." All of the other songs were written by Rundgren and various members of his band. Unlike his previous four albums where he wrote at least one song, Cassidy was given a co-writing credit on "Cool Fire."

The reinvention of teenybopper Cassidy as an edgy new wave artist was not enough to capture the attention of audiences. The album was Cassidy's second album not to chart on Billboard, essentially spelling the end of Cassidy's pop music career. He would score a final hit in Europe in 1989, with the standalone single "Memory Girl".

Winning and Score Predictor (WASP) is a calculation tool used in cricket to predict scores and possible results of a limited overs match, e.g. One Day and Twenty 20 matches.

The prediction is based upon factors like the ease of scoring on the day according to the pitch, weather and boundary size. For the team batting first, it gives the prediction of the final total. For the team batting second, it gives the probability of the chasing team winning, although it does not just take the match situation into the equation. Predictions are based on the average team playing against the average team in those conditions.

The models are based on a database of all non-shortened One Day International (ODI) matches and Twenty20 games played between top-eight countries since late 2006 (slightly further back for Twenty20 games). The batting-first model estimates the additional runs likely to be scored as a function of the number of balls and wickets remaining. The batting-second model estimates the probability of winning as a function of balls and wickets remaining, runs scored to date, and the target score. Projected score or required run-rate will not qualitatively show the real picture as they fail to take into the account the quality of the batting team and the quality of the bowling attack. WASP is a very good quantitative parameter.