{"id":19351,"date":"2020-06-19T17:07:05","date_gmt":"2020-06-19T17:07:05","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.omniglot.com\/bloggle\/?p=19351"},"modified":"2020-06-19T17:07:07","modified_gmt":"2020-06-19T17:07:07","slug":"butterflies-and-pavilions","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.omniglot.com\/bloggle\/?p=19351","title":{"rendered":"Butterflies and Pavilions"},"content":{"rendered":"

What is the connection between pavilions and butterflies?<\/p>\n

Well, the word pavilion<\/strong> comes from the Anglo-Norman pavilloun<\/em>, from the Latin p\u0101pili\u014dnem<\/em>, from p\u0101pili\u014d<\/em> (butterfly, moth), probably because a pavilion looks a bit like a butterfly’s wings.<\/p>\n

In French the word for butterfly is papillon<\/strong> [pa.pi.j\u0254\u0303], which comes from the same root as pavilion<\/strong>, which is also a French word.<\/p>\n

The word papillon<\/strong> also means a ticket, parking ticket; a wing nut or butterfly nut; someone brilliant, versatile and inconstant, or a flyer or tag.<\/p>\n

A papillon de nuit<\/strong> (“night butterfly”) is a moth, a n\u0153ud papillon<\/strong> (“butterfly knot\/bow”) is a bow tie and brasse papillon<\/strong> is butterfly stroke<\/a>, a style of swimming that seems unnecessarily effortful to me.<\/p>\n

A papillon adh\u00e9sif<\/strong> is a sticky note \/ Post-it note, papillonnage<\/strong> means flitting about or flitting from one relationship to the next, and papillonner<\/strong> means to flit (about\/incessantly).<\/p>\n

Are there any interesting butterfly-related expressions in other languages?<\/p>\n

\"Butterfly<\/a>