butterfly
UK [ˈbʌ.tə.flaɪ] · US [ˈbʌ.ɾɚ.flaɪ] noun, verb
Forms butterflies butterflying butterflied
- noun A flying insect of the order Lepidoptera, distinguished from moths by their diurnal activity and generally brighter colouring.
- noun (loosely) The imago (final form) of such an insect, consisting usually of a long body with large flat wings, as opposed to earlier instars such as caterpillar or pupa.
- noun (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”
- noun (swimming) The butterfly stroke.
- noun Any of several plane curves that look like a butterfly; see Butterfly curve (transcendental) and Butterfly curve (algebraic).
- noun (now rare) Someone seen as being unserious and (originally) dressed gaudily; someone flighty and unreliable.
- noun (finance) A combination of four options of the same type at three strike prices giving limited profit and limited risk.
- noun (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.”
- verb (transitive) To cut (food) almost entirely in half and spread the halves apart, in a shape suggesting the wings of a butterfly. “butterflied shrimp”
- verb (transitive) To cut strips of surgical tape or plasters into thin strips, and place across (a gaping wound) to close it.
- verb (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.”
Synonyms
balimbing apostate changeling defector runagate traitor transfuge turncloak turncoat turntippet withersake butterfly stroke chat up flirt dally coquet coquette romance philander mash
Etymology
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, 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-excretor”)). 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”), 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”).
Contrary to popularised belief, the form "butterfly" was not derived from an earlier flutterby.
Webster’s 1913
Etymology [Perh. from the color of a yellow species. AS. buter-flege, buttor-fleóge; cf. G. butterfliege, D. botervlieg. See Butter, and Fly.]
Sources: Wiktionary · WordNet 3.0 · Webster’s 1913 — from the Wiktionary entry “butterfly”, CC BY-SA 4.0. Details