| German | Schmetterling | not from schmettern, but schlagen, an old word for “butter” |
| Danish | sommerfugl | same in Norwegian |
| Swedish | fjäril | fjärran: “distant”? |
| French | papillon | from Latin |
| Italian | farfalla | from Latin |
| Dutch | vlinder | |
| Russian | бабочка | (babochka) баба: “peasant woman”, бабушка (babushka): “granny” |
| Polish | motyl | |
| Slovenian | metúlj | same in Czech |
| Croatian | leptir | |
| Spanish | mariposa | posar: “to perch” or “rest”, mari- indicates “effeminate”? |
| Portuguese | borboleta | borboletear: “to flutter”, borbulhar: “to bubble”? |
| Greek | ψυχή | (psyche): “soul”; consider “spooky” |
| Latin | papillio | also means “tent”, hence also “pavilion”; see also Farsi |
| Romainian | fluture | |
| Latvian | tauriņš | taure: “trumpet” ? |
| Lithuanian | drugelis | |
| Scottish | dalán-dé | “god’s fire” |
| Irish | féileacán | |
| Albanian | flutur | |
| Farsi | پروانه | (parvâne) |
| Cherokee | ᎧᎹᎹ | (ka-ma-ma) |
| Navajo | k’aalógii | |
| Indonesian | kupu-kupu | |
| Hawawiian | kamehameha | |
| Sanscrit | भंबीरा | (bhaṅbīrī, to run swiftly) |
| Hindi | तितली | parwāna (from Persian) |
| Hebrew | פרפר | (parpur) |
| Arabic | فراش | (farâsh) |
| Inuktitut | ᑕᕐᕋᓕᑭᑖᖅ | (tarralikitaaq) |
| Hungarian | pillangó | |
| Finnish | perhonen | perhoné: “fly”? |
| Turkish | kelebek | keles: brave, beautiful; bekâr: virgin ? |
| Korean | 나비 | also means “width” |
| Chinese | 蝴蝶 | (hú tíe) The bit 虫 that’s on the the left side of each character is the radical indicating “insect” or “worm”. Each character is sometimes used independently and in combinations with other characters to connote “butterfly”. |
See also Butterfly Etymology.