solitary wasp

plural solitary wasps

1. Used other than figuratively or idiomatically: see solitary, wasp.
2. datedAn informal taxonomic grouping of genera of wasps that included most of those with solitary habits.

   In the principal species of the Solitary Wasps, the insect is smaller than the working wasp of the social kind.

   1824, Oliver Goldsmith, A history of the earth, and animated nature, volume 5, pages 156–7

   2 more examples

   The Solitary Wasps usually make their nests of clay or agglutinated sand, generally attaching them to walls and palings; a few also burrow in sandy ground.

   1860, William Somerville Orr, Richard Owen, Robert Gordon Latham, Organic Nature: Botany, structural and systematic, page 395

   The true wasps (Diploptera) are divided into two families, Eumenides and Vespides. The fore-wings are folded longitudinally in repose. The solitary wasps much resemble the Fossores in their habits ; and differ from the social wasps in having bifid claws.

   1875, British Bee Journal, volume 3, page 78