murder hornet
murder hornet noun: synonym of Asian giant hornet (Vespa mandarinia) ^((See discussion)).
Noun
murder hornet (plural murder hornets)
- Synonym of Asian giant hornet (Vespa mandarinia) ^((See discussion))
- Their murderous rampages on bee colonies have earned them the nickname ‘murder hornets’ from entomologists.2017 January 1, “The Asian Giant Hornet, The Bee-Decapitating Hornet That Is The Stuff Of Nightmares”, in All That's Interesting
- It's unclear if this is, in fact, a murder hornet2020, "Deadly Hornet Massacres a Mouse on Video, They're Huge", TMZ
- Synonyms:
- Asian giant hornet
Synonyms of murder hornet
Forms of murder hornet
| plural | murder hornets |
|---|
Origin of murder hornet
Calque of Japanese 殺人スズメバチ (literally “murder hornet”), from 殺人 (satsujin, “さつじん”)+スズメバチ (suzumebachi, “雀蜂”), equivalent to murder + hornet. From its ability to kill people through its painful venomous stings, which can pierce through most regular beekeeper suits, killing some dozens of people a year in Japan; and its propensity for killing off honeybee colonies.
Questions about murder hornet
- What does murder hornet mean?
- Murder hornet means synonym of Asian giant hornet (Vespa mandarinia) ^((See discussion)).
- What part of speech is murder hornet?
- Murder hornet is a noun.
- What is the plural of murder hornet?
- The plural of murder hornet is murder hornets.
Words near murder hornet in the dictionary
Source and license
Adapted from Wiktionary: murder hornet (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.
Last updated:
Cite this entry: “murder hornet.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/murder_hornet. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.