Green’s Dictionary of Slang

1. (orig. US) an attractive young woman .

1872		J.D. McCabe Lights & Shadows 388: Betty Mulligan, a pretty little butterfly well known to the lovers of the ballet as Mademoiselle Alexandrine.
1926		Truth (Brisbane) 1 Aug. 20/5: Alexander [...] hung around the Babylonian Gardens too much at night, and done in his dough on the Babylon butterflys. These baby vamps finished him.
1930		R. Whitfield Green Ice (1988) 34: Dot Ellis was played up as an example of a Broadway butterfly.
1944		D. Burley Orig. Hbk of Harlem Jive 109: Getting all mixed up with those fine young butterflies that wanted to flutter but could only splutter.
1949		Monteleone Criminal Sl. (rev. edn).

2. an effeminate weakling.

1892		H. Nisbet Bushranger’s Sweetheart 108: Keep those cursed male butterflies from annoying her.
1943		‘Henry Green’ Caught (2001) 79: May God in his mercy strike every man of you cissies dead, you cloud of butterflies.

3. (US) an over-dressed, flashy person.

1902		Ade Girl Proposition 56: In his Heart of Hearts he wanted to be a Butterfly.
1983		R. Klein Jailhouse Jargon and Street Sl. [unpub. ms.].

4. (US) a worthless cheque which ‘flutters away’; thus butterfly man, one who passed such cheques.

1929		Hotstetter & Beesley It’s a Racket 219: Butterfly—A worthless cheque; a check that is being ‘kited.’.
1932		Writer’s Digest Aug. 46: A butterfly man makes worthless cheques [HDAS].
1950		Goldin et al. DAUL 38/1: Butterfly man. (Rare) One who issues or cashes bad checks.

5. (US campus) a flirt; also as v.

1949		J.M. Cain [bk title] The Butterfly.
1961		(con. early 1950s) J. Peacock Valhalla 67: Koko had a steady at the U.S. Bar and it wasn’t like him to be butterflying.
1964		in Current Sl. (1967) I:4.

6. (also butterfly boy) an effeminate male homosexual.

1960		D. Hamilton Death of a Citizen 119: Underneath all the weird styling dreamed up by the butterfly boys, some real engineers had got together and concocted something quite commendable.
1968		K. Brasselle Cannibals 253: He looks like a fucking butterfly.
1972		(ref. to late 1950s) B. Rodgers Queens’ Vernacular 72: stereotype effeminate homosexual [...] butterfly [boy] (hetero sl, late ’50s).
1979		Maledicta III:2 217: Latin homosexuals are perceived by others (and, to some extent, inevitably by themselves) as more fey than the [...] neo-macho English-speaking butch numbers who are more aggressive [...] and more confident than the butterflies and swishes of other climes.

7. (US gay) a black homosexual.

1980

Maledicta IV:2 (Winter) 228: Miss Mabel, Prissy, Butterfly [...] and Snowball, all for a Sheena = black queen (from the comic-book Sheena, Queen of the Jungle).

8. (US Und.) a new, young and attractive prisoner, characterized as being potentially appealing to prison homosexuals.

1992

Bentley & Corbett Prison Sl. 8: Butterfly New arrivals, who are young and pretty, at a particular prison.

9. see floater n.¹ (1e)

10. see iron butterfly under iron adj.