wasp

[OE] Etymologically, the wasp may be the ‘weaver’. The word comes ultimately from Indo- European *wobhes- or *wops-, which was probably derived from the base *webh-, *wobh- ‘weave’ (source of English weave, web, etc); the allusion is presumably to the papery nest which many species construct. West Germanic took this over as *wabis- or *waps-, and the process of metathesis (reversal of sounds) produced English wasp and German wespe. From the same Indo-European ancestor come Latin vespa (source of French guêpe, Italian vespa, and Spanish avispa) and Russian osa. => WEAVE, WEB