yellow jacket

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See also: Yellow Jacket, yellow-jacket, and yellowjacket

English[edit]

A southern yellowjacket (Vespula squamosa)
Yellow capsules of pentobarbital sodium

Alternative forms[edit]

Etymology[edit]

From yellow +‎ jacket.

  • (pentobarbital sodium): Named after the yellow capsule of the Nembutal brand.

Noun[edit]

yellow jacket (plural yellow jackets)

  1. (chiefly US) A predatory wasp with alternating black and yellow stripes around the abdomen, usually of the genera Vespula or Dolichovespula.
    • 2002, Dennis R. Pittenger, California Master Gardener Handbook, page 183:
      Yellowjackets (Vespula spp.) and paper wasps (Polistes spp.) are beneficial insects in that they are predators of house flies and insect pests that damage landscape trees and crops.
    • 2002, Roger D. Akre, Hal C. Reed, “19: Ants, Wasps an Bees (Hymenoptera)”, in Gary R. Mullen, Lance A. Durden, editors, Medical and Veterinary Entomology, page 398:
      The eastern yellowjacket (V. maeulifrons) and the hybrid yellowjacket (V. flavopilosa) are major picnic and campsite pests, especially in the fall in the eastern United States. […] Many people are stung while getting a drink of water from fountains frequented by yellowjackets seeking water.
    • 2007, James H. Hunt, The Evolution of Social Wasps, page 61:
      Vespula and Dolichovespula, collectively called yellowjackets, are broadly distributed in subarctic and temperate zones of the Northern Hemisphere, extending no farther into the tropics than high elevations at the temperate/tropical boundary (Hunt et al. 2001a). […] The wasp in your summertime can of soda or beer is a yellowjacket.
    • 2010, Ray Schar, Wonderfully Weird World, page 33:
      Rotting fruit lying on the ground in the back yard are drawing yellowjackets, got to get rid of them before one of the dogs get stung.
    • 2018 August 26, Hannah Hyam, “Letters: Wasp traps increase the risk of stings”, in The Guardian‎[1]:
      Yellow-jacket wasps breed quickly to maximise the use of available resources, and trying to outpace their productivity is nearly impossible. / For instance, a 2002 study showed that 80 traps around a 20-hectare water park failed to control yellow-jackets; and in 2006 after 42,367 yellow-jackets were slaughtered at a health spa, 91 stings were still reported.
    • 2019 June 30, Mariel Padilla, “Officials Warn of Wasp ‘Super Nests’ in Alabama”, in The New York Times‎[2]:
      Mr. Barron immediately retreated, and later sprayed hornet killer on the nest with his son. He said that just angered the yellow jackets, the highly aggressive wasps that live in such colonies. Mr. Barron was stung 11 times.
  2. (slang) A capsule of pentobarbital sodium (or sometimes other barbiturates), especially when used as a recreational drug.
    Synonym: canary
    • 1952 October 13, Richard L. Williams, “‘To sleep: perchance…’”, in Life, volume 33, number 15, page 110:
      Nearly every pharmaceutical house has its own brands, sold in tablets, solutions or brightly-colored capsules, on which its “detail men” keep doctors informed. Probably the most popular successors to Veronal are Seconal (“red birds” to the bootleg trade) and Nembutal (“yellow jackets”).
    • 1955, James Lamb Free, Just One More: Concerning the Problem Drinker, New York, NY: Coward-McCann, Inc., page 11:
      Very soon he had a second addiction, phenobarbital; piled on top of his first one, alcohol. And the next step was to begin taking them together, just to be doubly sure he was going to feel better. He would wash down a “yellow jacket” pill with a shot of whisky.
    • 1998, Jeffery Deaver, The Coffin Dancer, New York, NY: Pocket Books, published 2021, →ISBN, page 285:
      “Whatchu got, man?” / “Reds, bennies, dexies, yellow jackets, demmies.” / “Yeah, demmies're good shit, man. I pay you. Fuck. I got money. I'm hurting inside. Got beat up. Where my money?”
  3. Synonym of yellow vest (“member of a French protest movement which started in late 2018”).
    • 2018 November 30, “Belgian police and ‘yellow jacket’ protesters clash in Brussels”, in Independent.ie‎[3]:
      Police and hundreds of so-called “yellow jackets” protesting against high taxes and living costs have clashed in Brussels as the movement that started in France two weeks ago gained traction in Belgium.
    • 2022 August 15, Jordan Peterson, “Peddlers of environmental doom have shown their true totalitarian colours”, in The Telegraph‎[4]:
      If you’re seeking the cause of the Dutch agriculture and fisheries protests, the Canadian trucker convoy, the yellow-jackets in France, the farmer rebellion in India a few years ago, the recent catastrophic collapse of Sri Lanka, or the energy crisis in Europe and Australia, you can instruct yourself by the recent pronouncements from Deloitte.

Derived terms[edit]

Translations[edit]

yellow vest — see yellow vest

Further reading[edit]

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