What is meant by a "Flutterby"??

Question

does it refer to Butterflys?

btw, are the Butterflys usually male that pollinate other flowers or is it just a common thing for both sexes to do this?

thanks for your answers!

Answer 1

I used to call butterflies flutterby's when I was knee high to a Butterfly.
Both sexes pollinate plants when they drink nectar pollen gets all over em I always ave that problem with them ruddy great Lillies!!

Answer 2

Both sexes of diurnal lepidoptera visit flowers for nectar. With their long narrow proboscis they can only take nectar, liquids from rotting fruit or guano, and water from puddles. In some species the visits to mud puddles is done by the males. They may be collecting minerals to present to the female. They need more minerals than they get from a diet of nectar.
A butterfly in any language
http://www.insects.org/ced4/etymology.html
My favorite name for the insect is the Italian farfalla nearly the same as the pasta farfalle.
Etymology for flutterby/butterfly
To possibly continue an impossible debate which came first? http://my.opera.com/Dudley/blog/show.dml/401288
http://weblog.thelibrarygirl.com/2006/04/wordsles_mots.html
is yet another site that mentions flutterby was the original form of the word that has become inverted.
Yet the OED says
f. BUTTER + FLY; with Old English buttorfléoge cf. Dutch botervlieg, earlier botervlieghe, modern German butterfliege.

Perhaps butterfly was originally the name of a yellow species. A yellow cabbage butterfly or brimstone butterfly that was extended to other lepidopterous insects. Maybe because butterflies come in “butter season” from March to November. Perhaps someone saw the insect rising from their churned butter and called it an airborne grease-ball.

Here’s one of the three boterflyes in Chaucer

And so bifel that, as he caste his ye
Among the wortes on a boterflye,
He was war of this fox, that lay ful lowe.
(VII.3273-5)

http://www.aworldforbutterflies.com/etymology.htm

Answer 3

Just a play on words . By some accounts may have been the original term , that became "butterfly".

Answer 4

Yes, it is refering to butterflies. I believe it's originally from a poem that Winnie the Pooh sang in the book. I'll see if I can find it.

Answer 5

Nobody has pointed out yet that the word "flutterby" is what is called a "spoonerism". It is a play on words in which corresponding consonants, vowels, or sounds are switched.

Answer 6

another word mainly now used by kids for butterfly.
both sexes ,

Answer 7

dunno