alastors

Noun

alastor (plural alastors)

1. An avenging spirit or deity, variously associated with the Erinyes, Nemesis, and more.
   • Dog, leave thy snarling, or I'll cut thy tongue out !
     Thou unlick'd bear, dar'st thou yet stand my fury,
     My generous rage? yet? By the sulphureous damps
     That feed the hungry and incessant darkness,
     Which curls around the grim Alastor's back,
     Mutter again, and with one powerful word,
     I'll call an...1778 The Dramatick Works of Beaumont and Fletcher Vol. IX. Play: The Fair Maid of the Inn.p.378
2. In more recent ages, a term of rebuke for a pestilent rascal.
   • James Orton's choice of "Alastor" seems to have been an ironic pen name, suggesting a presumptuous voice.1852 James Orton: "Excelsior" or "The Realms of Poesie by Alastor". Private publication printed by William Pickering, London
3. A genus of hunting wasp
   • Alastor eriurgus. . . A very common "mason wasp" in the neighbourhood of Sydney; very plentiful in February and March.
   • They are subject to the attacks of cuckoo wasps and other parasitic Hymenoptera; in one nest I found a small Bracon larva beside the young Alastor, which it soon devoured, and then spun an elongate white silken cocoon, out of which it emerged ten days after; . . . I have bred out several specimens....1895 Walter W. Froggatt On The Nests and Habits of Australian Vespidae and Larridae. Proceedings of the Linnean Society of New South Wales. (second series.) vol. IX 1894. p.27

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