| Library / English Dictionary |
WASP
| Pronunciation (US): |  | (GB): | |
I. (noun)
Sense 1
Meaning:
Social or solitary hymenopterans typically having a slender body with the abdomen attached by a narrow stalk and having a formidable sting
Classified under:
Hypernyms ("wasp" is a kind of...):
hymenopter; hymenopteran; hymenopteron; hymenopterous insect (insects having two pairs of membranous wings and an ovipositor specialized for stinging or piercing)
Hyponyms (each of the following is a kind of "wasp"):
vespid; vespid wasp (mostly social nest-building wasps)
velvet ant (a solitary wasp of the family Mutillidae; the body has a coat of brightly colored velvety hair and the females are wingless)
sphecoid; sphecoid wasp (any of various solitary wasps)
cynipid gall wasp; cynipid wasp; gall wasp; gallfly (small solitary wasp that produces galls on oaks and other plants)
Sense 2
Meaning:
A white person of Anglo-Saxon ancestry who belongs to a Protestant denomination
Synonyms:
WASP; white Anglo-Saxon Protestant
Classified under:
Hypernyms ("WASP" is a kind of...):
Caucasian; White; White person (a Caucasian)
Protestant (an adherent of Protestantism)
Context examples:
The new paper proposes a model for what might be happening on both the illuminated and dark sides of these planets, based largely on observations and analysis of the ultrahot Jupiter known as WASP-121b, and from three recently published studies, that focus on the ultrahot Jupiters WASP-103b, WASP-18b and HAT-P-7b, respectively.
(Water Is Destroyed, Then Reborn in Ultrahot Jupiters, NASA/JPL)
There was a collection of needles and pins, from a foot to half a yard long; four wasp stings, like joiner’s tacks; some combings of the queen’s hair; a gold ring, which one day she made me a present of, in a most obliging manner, taking it from her little finger, and throwing it over my head like a collar.
(Gulliver's Travels into several remote nations of the world, by Jonathan Swift)
The star, WASP-18, and its planet, WASP-18b, are located about 330 light-years from Earth.
(NASA’s Chandra X-ray Observatory Finds Planet That Makes Star Act Deceptively Old, NASA)
Activation by Wave-1, another member of the WASP family, also induces actin alterations in response to Rac1 signals upstream.
(Actin Branching Pathway, NCI Thesaurus/BIOCARTA)
These future studies will reveal the detailed nature of WASP-127b as a benchmark for this new class of very low-density exoplanets.
(Multiple metals – and possible signs of water – found in unique exoplanet, University of Cambridge)
The amount of helium detected in the atmosphere of WASP-107b is so large that its upper atmosphere must extend tens of thousands of kilometres out into space.
(Hubble detects helium in the atmosphere of an exoplanet for the first time, ESA/Hubble)
To produce the spectral fingerprints seen by the team, the upper atmosphere of WASP-18b would have to be loaded with carbon monoxide.
(WASP-18b Has Smothering Stratosphere Without Water, NASA)
The venom of insects such as wasps and bees is full of compounds that can kill bacteria.
(Venom of Wasp, Bee Repurposed as Antibiotic Drug, The Titi Tudorancea Bulletin)
Prior studies have argued that there is a more significant amount of water in the dayside atmosphere of WASP-121b than what is apparent from observations, because most of the signal from the water is obscured.
(Water Is Destroyed, Then Reborn in Ultrahot Jupiters, NASA/JPL)
I remember, one morning, when Glumdalclitch had set me in a box upon a window, as she usually did in fair days to give me air (for I durst not venture to let the box be hung on a nail out of the window, as we do with cages in England), after I had lifted up one of my sashes, and sat down at my table to eat a piece of sweet cake for my breakfast, above twenty wasps, allured by the smell, came flying into the room, humming louder than the drones of as many bagpipes.
(Gulliver's Travels into several remote nations of the world, by Jonathan Swift)
