danaid

Estimated CEFR level: C2 — Proficiency

Estimated from word frequency; not an official CEFR classification.

Definition

noun large tropical butterfly with degenerate forelegs and an unpleasant taste

Good hope remains there at the bottom, as in Pandora’s bottle; and not despair, as in the puncheon of the Danaids. — Gargantua and Pantagruel, François Rabelais
They knew that the finest grasshoppers abounded in the long grass by the brook; they knew that the currant-bushes dropped fatness in the form of smooth, green worms; they knew that the dome of an ant-hill rising against the distant woods stood for a garner of plenty; they knew that strawberries, though not really insects, were almost as delicious; they knew that the huge danaid butterflies were good, safe game, if they could only catch them, and that a slab of bark dropping from the side of a rotten log was sure to abound in good things of many different kinds; and they had learned, also, that yellow-jackets, mud-wasps, woolly worms, and hundred-leggers were better let alone. — Wild Animals I Have Known, Ernest Thompson Seton

danaid butterfly

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