murder hornet

noun

plural murder hornets

: northern giant hornet

Note: This insect, formerly known as the Asian giant hornet, murder hornet, or Japanese giant hornet, was officially renamed the northern giant hornet by the Entomological Society of America in July 2022 in order to comply with Society policies discouraging geographic references for invasive species.

Examples of murder hornet in a Sentence

Recent Examples on the Web This remote monitor has a bait station that can detect the presence of the murder hornet and distinguish it from other insects. —

Discover Magazine, 14 Oct. 2024 Between earthquakes popping up in unusual places, murder hornets making a brief debut a couple years ago (remember those?), and the price of a Trader Joe’s banana rising for the first time in decades, the world seems to be increasingly unpredictable. —

Bychloe Berger, Fortune, 12 Apr. 2024 In: Georgia Bees murder hornet Agriculture Simrin Singh Simrin Singh is a social media producer and trending content writer for CBS News. —

Simrin Singh, CBS News, 15 Aug. 2023 Washington state eradicated a giant nest of nearly 1,500 murder hornets in 2021. —

Simrin Singh, CBS News, 15 Aug. 2023 Earlier this year, nearly 1,000 hornet traps were set in Whatcom County, where the murder hornets were confirmed. —

Caitlin O'Kane, CBS News, 18 Aug. 2022 No murder hornet deaths have been reported in the USA. —

Laura L. Davis, USA TODAY, 13 Sep. 2021 The northern giant hornet, most notoriously known as the murder hornet, has been given a new common name that accurately describes its origins. —

Joshua Hawkins, BGR, 26 July 2022 The murder hornet was recently detected in Washington, where entomologists are trying to eradicate it. —

Erik Stokstad, Science | AAAS, 9 Dec. 2020

These examples are programmatically compiled from various online sources to illustrate current usage of the word 'murder hornet.' Any opinions expressed in the examples do not represent those of Merriam-Webster or its editors. Send us feedback about these examples.