Sphecid

Part of speech: noun

Definitions

1. Any member of a family of solitary wasps that dig burrows and provision them with paralyzed insects for their young
2. A solitary digger wasp belonging to the family Sphecidae, which hunts insects to feed its offspring in underground nests
3. An insect of the wasp family Sphecidae that stings and stocks its nest burrow with prey to nourish developing larvae

Etymology: Sphecid is a technical coinage, not an ancient word. It is the common name for members of the family Sphecidae, the digger wasps, and it was built in the 19th century from the Greek "sphēx", meaning "wasp" (in Homer and Aristotle it could mean a wasp or a hornet). Scientists took that classical root and added the standard zoological suffix "-idae", which marks a biological family, so the name reads roughly as "the wasp family." The Greek root carries an odd irony. Aristotle and other ancient writers were fascinated by these wasps' habit of stocking burrows with paralysed insects for their young, and the Greek word itself came to be linked with the creature's name in classical natural history. The Greek name survives in modern biology largely because naturalists reached for the classical vocabulary of wasps when they needed precise labels for newly described groups.

Synonyms: digger wasp