butterfly

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English

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WOTD – 23 January 2006

Etymology

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A butterfly.
A brimstone butterfly. The word butterfly may have its origins in the name of yellow (or cream-coloured) butterflies such as this.

From Middle English buterflie, butturflye, boterflye, from Old English buterflēoge, equivalent to butter +‎ fly. Cognate with Dutch botervlieg, German Butterfliege (“butterfly”). The name may have originally been applied to butterflies of a yellowish color, and/or reflected a belief that butterflies ate milk and butter (compare German Molkendieb (“butterfly”, literally “whey-thief”) and Low German Botterlicker (“butterfly”, literally “butter-licker”)), or that they excreted a butter-like substance (compare Dutch boterschijte (“butterfly”, literally “butter-shitter”)). Compare also German Schmetterling from Schmetten (“cream”), German Low German Bottervögel (“butterfly”, literally “butter-fowl”). More at butter, fly.

An alternate theory suggests that the first element may have originally been Old English butor- (“beater”), a mutation of bēatan (“to beat”),[1] but this would not explain the cognates in other languages or the other names formed with milk products.

Superseded non-native Middle English papilion (“butterfly”) borrowed from Old French papillon (“butterfly”).

Pronunciation

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Noun

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butterfly (plural butterflies)

  2. A flying insect of the order Lepidoptera, distinguished from moths by their diurnal activity and generally brighter colouring. [from 11th c.]
    • a. 1931 (date written), D[avid] H[erbert] Lawrence, “[Autobiographical Fragment]”, in Edward D[avid] McDonald, editor, Phoenix: The Posthumous Papers of D. H. Lawrence, London: William Heinemann, published 1936, →OCLC, page 836:
      It is true. I am like a butterfly, and I shall only live a little while.
  3. (medicine, attributive) A use of surgical tape, cut into thin strips and placed across an open wound to hold it closed.
    butterfly tape; butterfly bandage; butterfly strips
  5. (swimming) The butterfly stroke. [from 20th c.]
  6. Any of several plane curves that look like a butterfly; see Butterfly curve (transcendental) and Butterfly curve (algebraic).
  7. (in the plural) Short for butterflies in one’s stomach (“A sensation of excited anxiety felt in the stomach”).
    I get terrible butterflies before an exam.
  8. (now rare) Someone seen as being unserious and (originally) dressed gaudily; someone flighty and unreliable. [from 17th c.]
    • 1859, George Meredith, chapter 15, in The Ordeal of Richard Feverel. A History of Father and Son. […], volume (please specify |volume=I to III), London: Chapman and Hall, →OCLC:
      He was affable; therefore he was frivolous. The women liked him; therefore he was a butterfly.
    • 1897, Henry James, What Maisie Knew:
      The day came indeed when her breathless auditors learnt from her in bewilderment that what ailed him was that he was, alas, simply not serious. Maisie wept on Mrs. Wix's bosom after hearing that Sir Claude was a butterfly […].
  9. (finance) A combination of four options of the same type at three strike prices giving limited profit and limited risk.
  10. (alternate history) A random change in an aspect of the timeline seemingly unrelated to the primary point of divergence, resulting from the butterfly effect.
    One potential butterfly could be JFK having another son the year after the POD instead of a daughter.
  11. (sports) A type of stretch in which one sits on the ground with the legs folded into a shape like that of a butterfly's wings, slightly rocking them up and down, resembling the wings fluttering.
  12. A person who changes partners frequently.
    • 2022 December 9, Darren C, “Paying For Bar Girls, Sex in Pattaya”, in Pattaya Unlimited‎[1]:
      What does it mean to be a butterfly in Pattaya? It means, just like a butterfly briefly visits many flowers, you will briefly visit many different girls.
  13. (mining) A safety link or detaching hook above the cage attached to the winding rope to prevent the cage from being overwound.

Synonyms

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  • (flying insect): lep

Hypernyms

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Derived terms

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Translations

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The translations below need to be checked and inserted above into the appropriate translation tables. See instructions at Wiktionary:Entry layout § Translations.
Translations to be checked

Verb

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butterfly (third-person singular simple present butterflies, present participle butterflying, simple past and past participle butterflied)

  1. (transitive) To cut (food) almost entirely in half and spread the halves apart, in a shape suggesting the wings of a butterfly.
    butterflied shrimp
    Butterfly the chicken before you grill it.
  2. (transitive) To cut strips of surgical tape or plasters into thin strips, and place across (a gaping wound) to close it.
    • 2006, Paul Garber, Newton's Force, page 256:
      After everyone had obeyed his commands, the lieutenant motioned for two medics that now appeared to enter the room and attend to Dr. Carter. They bandaged him up, butterflying some of the deeper gashes and gave him a couple of shots.
  3. (transitive, of the point of divergence of an alternate history scenario) To cause events after the point of divergence to not happen as they did in real history, and people conceived after the point of divergence to not exist in recognizable form, due to the random variations introduced by the butterfly effect.
    Pearl Harbor not happening would've butterflied Taylor Swift.

See also

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References

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  1. ^ Donald A. Ringe, A Linguistic History of English: From Proto-Indo-European to Proto-Germanic (Oxford: Oxford, 2003), 232.

Further reading

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Anagrams

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Danish

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Noun

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butterfly c (singular definite butterflyen, plural indefinite butterfly)

  1. bowtie

Inflection

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Declension of butterfly
common
gender 		Singular Plural
indefinite definite indefinite definite
nominative butterfly butterflyen butterfly butterflyene
genitive butterflys butterflyens butterflys butterflyenes
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