WASP

Where it comes from

Inherited from Middle English wappes, waps, wasp, waspe, from Old English wæfs, wæps, wæsp, from Proto-West Germanic *wapsu, from Proto-Germanic *wapsō (“wasp”), from Proto-Indo-European *wóbʰseh₂ (“wasp”), from *webʰ- (“to braid, weave”), referring to the insect's woven nests. Cognate with North Frisian wesp (“wasp”), Saterland Frisian Häspe (“wasp”), West Frisian waps (“wasp”), Alemannic German Wespi (“wasp”), Bavarian Weps, Wepsn (“wasp”), Cimbrian bèspa (“wasp”), Dutch and Vilamovian wesp (“wasp”), German Wespe (“wasp”), Low German Weps, Wepse (“wasp”), Yiddish וועספּ (vesp), וועספּע (vespe, “wasp”), Danish hveps (“wasp”), Norwegian Bokmål veps (“wasp”), Norwegian Nynorsk kvefs (“wasp”); also Cornish goghi (“wasp”), Irish foich, foiche, puch (“wasp”), Welsh gwchi (“drone”), Latin vespa (“wasp”), Greek ανυφαίνω (anyfaíno), υφαίνω (yfaíno, “to weave”), Albanian vej (“to weave”), Latvian lapsene (“wasp”), Lithuanian vapsvà (“wasp”), Old Prussian wobse (“wasp”), Belarusian аса́ (asá, “wasp”), Bulgarian, Macedonian, Russian, and Ukrainian оса́ (osá, “wasp”), Czech vosa (“wasp”), Polish, Slovene, and Slovak osa (“wasp”), Serbo-Croatian о̀са, òsa (“wasp”), Armenian մոզ (moz, “a kind of fly that bites horses and cattle”), Avestan 𐬬𐬀𐬡𐬲𐬀𐬐𐬀 (vaβžaka, “scorpion”), Central Kurdish مۆز (moz, “gadfly, horsefly”), Mazanderani ماز (mâz, “fly”), Northern Kurdish moz (“wasp; gadfly, horsefly; bee; bumblebee”), Persian بوز (bavz / bowz, “wasp”), Tocharian A wäp- (“to weave”), Tocharian B wāp- (“to weave”), Sanskrit उभ्नाति (ubhnāti, “to hurt, kill; to cover”). Metathesis of /s/ and /p/ was both a process of some generality within English (compare grasp from Middle English grapsen, and—affecting other plosives—ascian ~ acsian (“to ask”)) and common in the reflexes of *wóps-eh₂ (“wasp”) in particular, as the aforementioned Germanic cognates (and non-Germanic cognates like Latin vespa) evince.

Etymology via Wiktionary (CC BY-SA).

WASP in OUTLIER

Players have found it on 20 boards so far. 48 players have found it across Outlier's history.

It first turned up on Day 25, 14 June 2026. The most recent board was Day 103, 31 August 2026. Nobody has seen it on a board for 8 days.

Built from these letters

WASP starts with W and ends with P. Sorted, its letters read APSW - the shape to hunt for when the grid is scrambled. No letter is used twice, which makes it an isogram.

Same letters, different word

4 other words use exactly these letters. Worth knowing at the board: an anagram fits a grid the same way.

Words that start WASP

Its neighbours in the OUTLIER dictionary - shortest first.

Also seen on Day 25