Definitions
from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 5th Edition.
- noun A member of Women's Airforce Service Pilots, organized during World War II as part of the US Army Air Forces to ferry aircraft and to test new aircraft. The organization was disbanded in 1944.
- noun A white Protestant of Anglo-Saxon ancestry.
- noun A white, usually Protestant member of the American upper social class.
Etymologies
from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 4th Edition
from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 4th Edition
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Examples
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Look, I know the term WASP was invented to describe preppies and monied families who send their kids to Exeter and Dartmouth, as well as a way to differentiate between themselves and other White People like Catholics and Jews, but if we're going to use a term, why can't we just call them White Protestants?
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Well, as someone born to first gen Irish, and raised Catholic, I had always thought that the redundancy of the term WASP was intentional.
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Look, I know the term WASP was invented to describe preppies and monied families who send their kids to Exeter and Dartmouth, as well as a way to differentiate between themselves and other White People like Catholics and Jews, but if we're going to use a term, why can't we just call them White Protestants?
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CHRISTOPHER: But you see that's where the term WASP is really a misnomer because WASPs -- they are white that much is true so far that may change, but they are not necessarily Anglo Saxon by ancestry at all, nor are they even necessarily Protestant.
Crashing the Gates: The De-WASPing of America's Power Elite 1989
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Here's another entry in the debate about the origin of the term WASP for White Anglo-Saxon Protestant (set off by the Sept. 27 review of Tad Friend's memoir "Cheerful Money").
NYT > Home Page 2009
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Now, if the term WASP is used by a white person, then it would be no more racist than a black using the word nigger although it could still be a slur, especially if used in the way Digglahhh does.
Not A Post Racism Society: Boys and Apologies « Lean Left 2008
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If you ever need to check on beacons WASP is clearly the way to go. blog comments powered by Disqus
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At the hearing, Morris identified Fuhrman as the unofficial leader of a notorious cop clique called Men Against Women and the ringleader for another, less well-known group that went by the acronym WASP, for White Anglo-Saxon Policemen.
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There were going to make the female version of this called The WASP, but the hero is just a xanaxed-housewife whose “manservant” is a seventeen-year-old pool boy.
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Built by Mike Tassey and Richard Perkins, the Wireless Aerial Surveillance Platform otherwise known as the WASP is a flying drone that has a 6-foot wingspan, a 6-foot length and weighs in at 14 pounds.
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