wasp-waisted

comparative more wasp-waisted · superlative most wasp-waisted

1. Having a very slim waist, especially as a result of tightly-laced clothing.

   He strutted down Bond Street with the best of them, decked out in his top hat, wasp-waisted coat and silk hose.

   1982, TC Boyle, Water Music, Penguin, published 2006, page 11

   3 more examples

   Last week she had opened a door by mistake on a staircase in Bayswater and a woman in a tight black waspwaisted corset, pearls lolling between two great naked breasts, stood by a cage made of gold wire the size of a fourposter bed, in which were a dozen or so brilliantly fringed and tinted birds.

   1969, Doris Lessing, The Four-Gated City, HarperCollins, published 1993, page 33

   Being a devotee of the Johnny Weismuller school of Tarzaning, no wasp-waisted cartoon character can get my blood aboil.

   1999 July 18, The Atlanta Journal Constitution, Atlanta, Ga, page 8

   "Housewife" recalls too strongly the wasp-waisted 1950s figure outwardly thrilling to the latest advances in domestic technology while necking tranquillisers to dull the pain of frustrated ambition.

   2011 October 12, Lucy Mangan, The Guardian