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cockroach wasp

cockroach wasp noun: any wasp of the family Ampulicidae, small sphecoid wasps that prey on cockroaches to lay their eggs on them.

Noun

cockroach wasp (plural cockroach wasps)

  1. Any wasp of the family Ampulicidae, small sphecoid wasps that prey on cockroaches to lay their eggs on them.
    • The emerald cockroach wasp, Ampulex compressa, uses a cockroach as a host by essentially taking over its mind.2007, Craig Childs, The Animal Dialogues: Uncommon Encounters in the Wild
    • Equally fascinating was a video shot by Norman Hoyle, the school's Deputy Head, which showed a cockroach having been stung by a cockroach wasp (Ampulex Compressa) - though I seem to recall that the locals had a different name for it.2010, Lynas Murdoch, Four Years on St Helena, page 92

Forms of cockroach wasp

pluralcockroach wasps

Words formed from cockroach wasp

Questions about cockroach wasp

What does cockroach wasp mean?
Cockroach wasp means any wasp of the family Ampulicidae, small sphecoid wasps that prey on cockroaches to lay their eggs on them.
What part of speech is cockroach wasp?
Cockroach wasp is a noun.
What is the plural of cockroach wasp?
The plural of cockroach wasp is cockroach wasps.

Words near cockroach wasp in the dictionary

  1. Cockroach Island
  2. cockroach of the sea
  3. cockroach taxi
  4. cockroach taxis
  5. cockroach theory
  6. cockroach wasp
  7. cockroach wasps
  8. cockroaches
  9. cockroaches of the sea
  10. cockroachicide
  11. cockroachicides

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: cockroach wasp (page history and authors). Text available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 license. Word.ws reformatted the entry and added links. Wiktionary data of 2026-09-02.

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