'Buttorfleoge' was the Old English word used for butterflies. The apparent reason is that they believed that butterflies used to steal milk. This same belief gave rise to a similar word in Dutch and German.
There is an alternative folk etymology that the term has evolved as a contraction of the term 'butter-coloured fly'. This term was generally used for the Brimstone Butterfly (that is the Gonepteryx rhamni), which often is the first butterfly of Spring. A lot of people are of the mistaken opinion that the word butterfly comes from a metathesis of the word "flutterby".
There are four stages in the lifecycle of a butterfy: Egg; larva (known as caterpillar); Pupa (chrysalis); Adult butterfly (imago). There are a lot of folk tales associated with butterflies. One Japanese superstition states that a person you love the most is coming to meet you if a butterfly enters your guestroom and sits behind the bamboo screen. On the contrary, a large number of butterflies is seen as a bad omen.
There is an alternative folk etymology that the term has evolved as a contraction of the term 'butter-coloured fly'. This term was generally used for the Brimstone Butterfly (that is the Gonepteryx rhamni), which often is the first butterfly of Spring. A lot of people are of the mistaken opinion that the word butterfly comes from a metathesis of the word "flutterby".
There are four stages in the lifecycle of a butterfy: Egg; larva (known as caterpillar); Pupa (chrysalis); Adult butterfly (imago). There are a lot of folk tales associated with butterflies. One Japanese superstition states that a person you love the most is coming to meet you if a butterfly enters your guestroom and sits behind the bamboo screen. On the contrary, a large number of butterflies is seen as a bad omen.
