Word.ws English Dictionary

waspy

UK/ˈwɒspi/US/ˈwɑspi/

waspy adjective: resembling or characteristic of a wasp; wasplike.

Adjective (1)

waspy (comparative waspier, superlative waspiest)

  1. Resembling or characteristic of a wasp; wasplike.
    • I'm blond and blue-eyed and twenty-five, and my legs are strong and my bosom is substantial, and I have a waspy waistline.2001, Charlaine Harris, Dead Until Dark
  2. Infested with wasps.
    • a waspy apple
  3. Waspish; irascible.

Adjective (2)

waspy (comparative waspier, superlative waspiest)

  1. (slang) Like a wasp (white Anglo-Saxon Protestant), a member of the dominant American upper-class culture.
    • “I wasn’t asking the traditional waspy preppy types.2007 June 17, Allen Salkin, “Manny and the Socialites: Let’s Roll”, in New York Times
    • At a glance, Thor Steinar resembles waspy American pseudo-collegiate brands like Abercrombie and Fitch, Hollister, and Aeropostale, while displaying a distinctly Nordic aesthetics.2017, Geneviève Zubrzycki, National Matters: Materiality, Culture, and Nationalism

Adjective (3) capitalized: WASPy

WASPy (comparative WASPier, superlative WASPiest)

  1. (informal) Alternative letter-case form of waspy (“characteristic of a WASP”).
    • Laughing, Ms. Vanderbilt said: “I have two very WASPy friends who are quite disapproving. One of them said, ‘I think it’s going to ruin your reputation.’2009 June 17, Charles McGrath, quoting Gloria Vanderbilt, “At 85, a Brahmin in Blue Jeans Writes of Sex, Masks and Veggies”, in The New York Times, →ISSN
    • She was the kind of Wasp-y pretty I desperately wanted to be – the type of beauty that provoked starry-eyed crushes instead of ass slaps.2016 May 28, Jessica Valenti, “Jessica Valenti: my life as a ‘sex object’”, in The Guardian

Forms of waspy

comparativewaspier
superlativewaspiest
alternative formWASPy
comparativeWASPier
superlativeWASPiest

Origin of waspy

From wasp + -y.

From WASP + -y.

Words formed from waspy

Questions about waspy

What does waspy mean?
Waspy means resembling or characteristic of a wasp; wasplike.
What part of speech is waspy?
Waspy is an adjective.
How do you pronounce waspy?
Waspy is pronounced /ˈwɒspi/ (UK).

Words near waspy in the dictionary

  1. waspnest
  2. wasps
  3. wasps around
  4. Wasps Nest
  5. waspwaisted
  6. waspy
  7. Wasrael
  8. wass
  9. wassa
  10. wassail
  11. wassail bowl

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: waspy (page history and authors); WASPy (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:

Pronunciation audio from Wikimedia Commons, each file under its own free license: En-au-waspy.ogg.

Cite this entry: “waspy.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/waspy. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.