different between butterfly vs chick

English

Etymology

From Middle English buterflie, butturflye, boterflye, from Old English butorfl?oge, buttorfl?oge, buterfl?oge (from butere (“butter”)), 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 butor- (“beater”), a mutation of b?atan (“to beat”).

Superseded non-native Middle English papilion (“butterfly”) borrowed from Old French papillon (“butterfly”).

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): /?b?t?(?)fla?/
  • (US, Canada) IPA^(key): [?b???fla?]
  • (UK) IPA^(key): [?b?t?fla?]
• Rhymes: -a?

Noun

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.]
3. A use of surgical tape, cut into thin strips and placed across an open wound to hold it closed.

5. (swimming) The butterfly stroke. [from 20th c.]
6. (in the plural) A sensation of excited anxiety felt in the stomach.

   I get terrible butterflies before an exam.

7. (now rare) Someone seen as being unserious and (originally) dressed gaudily; someone flighty and unreliable. [from 17th c.]
   • 1859, George Meredith, The Ordeal of Richard Feverel, Chapter 15:

     He was affable; therefore he was frivolous. The women liked him; therefore he was a butterfly.

Synonyms

• lep

Derived terms

Translations

Verb

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.

See also

• caterpillar
• flutterby
• moth
• Appendix: Animals
• Appendix:English collective nouns

References

Anagrams

• flutterby

Danish

Noun

butterfly c (singular definite butterflyen, plural indefinite butterfly)

1. bowtie

Inflection

English

Etymology 1

From Middle English chicke, chike, variation of chiken (“chicken", also "chick”), from Old English ?icen, ?ycen (“chicken”). Sense of "young woman" dates to at least 1860 (compare chit (“young, pert woman”)). More at chicken.

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): /t???k/
• Rhymes: -?k

Noun

chick (plural chicks or (obsolete) chicken)

1. A young bird.

   Synonym: fledgling

   Coordinate term: birdlet

2. A young chicken.
3. (dated, endearing) A young child.
5. (colloquial, sometimes derogatory) A young, typically attractive, woman or teenage girl.

   Synonyms: see Thesaurus:girl, Thesaurus:woman
6. (military, slang) A friendly fighter aircraft.
   • 2004, Joe Welzen, The Gutsy Stomach Walker (page 50)

     The Aldis lamp flashes at the underside of each aircraft. It shows that the gear is down. Diegal is relaxing. This is such low responsibility, easy night duty. All the “chicks” (fighter aircraft) are home to roost except one.

Derived terms

• chick flick
• chickfriend
• chick lit
• chick magnet

Translations

Verb

chick (third-person singular simple present chicks, present participle chicking, simple past and past participle chicked)

1. (obsolete) To sprout, as seed does in the ground; to vegetate.

   (Can we find and add a quotation of Chalmers to this entry?)

Etymology 2

From Hindi ???? f (ciq) and Urdu ??? f (ciq), ultimately from Persian ??? f (ciq).

Noun

chick (plural chicks)

1. (India, Pakistan) A screen or blind made of finely slit bamboo and twine, hung in doorways or windows.
   • 1890, Rudyard Kipling, Letter to William Canton, 5 April, 1890, in Sandra Kemp and Lisa Lewis (eds.) Writings on writing by Rudyard Kipling, Cambridge University Press, 1996, p. 34, [1]

     Then, through a cautiously lifted chick, the old scene stands revealed […]

   • 1905, A. C. Newcombe, Village, Town, and Jungle Life in India, Edinburgh and London: William Blackwood and Sons, Chapter VII p. 106, [2]

     It is not uncommon at meal-time to see the table servants chasing the sparrows about the room, endeavouring to drive them out while some one holds up the "chick" or bamboo net which covers the doorway.

   • 1934, George Orwell, Burmese Days, Chapter 2, [3]

     […] at this time of day all the verandas were curtained with green bamboo chicks.

   • 1999, Kevin Rushby, Chasing the Mountain of Light: Across India on the Trail of the Koh-i-Noor Diamond, New York: St. Martin's Press, Chapter 10, p. 216, [4]

     Outside I could hear the bamboo chick tapping on the door like a blind man's stick on a kerbstone.

Synonyms

• chick-blinds

Derived terms

• chicked

Yola

Etymology

From Middle English chike, from Old English ?icen. Cognate with English chick, and Scots schik.

Noun

chick

1. chicken

References

• Jacob Poole (1867) , William Barnes, editor, A glossary, with some pieces of verse, of the old dialect of the English colony in the baronies of Forth and Bargy, County of Wexford, Ireland, J. Russell Smith, ?ISBN