social butterfly
a very sociable person who goes from one social event to another
TRANSLATION
social butterfly = ein geselliger Mensch --- GOOGLE INDEX social butterfly: approximately 700,000 Google hits
STATISTICS
IN THE PRESS
As a young man he wrote a much-praised novel but he's now become a SOCIAL BUTTERFLY, enjoying everything high society in Rome has to offer.
(BBC News)
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She wasn’t a SOCIAL BUTTERFLY. She was the smartest businesswoman I ever met. She thoroughly enjoyed running the foundation and showed some of her wealthy friends how much fun giving away their money could be.
(New York Times)
(BBC News)
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She wasn’t a SOCIAL BUTTERFLY. She was the smartest businesswoman I ever met. She thoroughly enjoyed running the foundation and showed some of her wealthy friends how much fun giving away their money could be.
(New York Times)
Did you
know?
social butterfly
noun phrase
- a very sociable person who goes from one social event to another
(Dictionary.com)
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Like a real butterfly that flies and dances from one flower to the next, the social butterfly floats from party to party, talking to everyone and enjoying their company. A social butterfly might also be called a "people person."
The word social is from the Latin "socius," meaning friend. The origin of the term butterfly is a bit more interesting however. As the site Insects.org points out (where else to find information about insect terms?), the Oxford English Dictionary notes the old Dutch words "botervlieg" and "boterschijte," and suggests that people may have thought that butterfly excrement resembled butter, hence the name "butter-shit," then "butter-fly".
The Webster’s Dictionary says the word may come from the notion that butterflies, or witches in that form, stole milk and butter. This ties in nicely with "Schmetterling," the German word for butterfly that supposedly stems from "schmetten," an Upper Saxony dialect word loaned from the Czech language that meant cream. This referred to butterflies’ tendency to hover around milk pails and butter churns. Folk belief said that butterflies were really witches out to steal the cream.
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SMUGGLE OWAD into today's conversation
"She's quite a social butterfly, you'll see her at every party."
noun phrase
- a very sociable person who goes from one social event to another
(Dictionary.com)
---
Like a real butterfly that flies and dances from one flower to the next, the social butterfly floats from party to party, talking to everyone and enjoying their company. A social butterfly might also be called a "people person."
The word social is from the Latin "socius," meaning friend. The origin of the term butterfly is a bit more interesting however. As the site Insects.org points out (where else to find information about insect terms?), the Oxford English Dictionary notes the old Dutch words "botervlieg" and "boterschijte," and suggests that people may have thought that butterfly excrement resembled butter, hence the name "butter-shit," then "butter-fly".
The Webster’s Dictionary says the word may come from the notion that butterflies, or witches in that form, stole milk and butter. This ties in nicely with "Schmetterling," the German word for butterfly that supposedly stems from "schmetten," an Upper Saxony dialect word loaned from the Czech language that meant cream. This referred to butterflies’ tendency to hover around milk pails and butter churns. Folk belief said that butterflies were really witches out to steal the cream.
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SMUGGLE OWAD into today's conversation
"She's quite a social butterfly, you'll see her at every party."
