chrysalis

Definition

The pupa of a butterfly or moth, particularly bare and hanging or girdled, as opposed to enclosed in a cocoon, in which metamorphosis takes place.

Etymology

From Latin chrysalis, from Ancient Greek χρυσαλλίς (khrusallís), from χρυσός (khrusós, “gold”), because of the color of some of them.

Example Sentences

• "Amongst the particular signs testifying the same thing, are also those exhibited by worms which feed on herbs, which, when they are to undergo a metamorphosis, encompass themselves as with a womb, that they may be born again, being therein changed into nymphs and chrysalisses, and presently into beautiful butterflies, when they fly into the air as into their heaven, where the female sports with her male companion, as one conjugal partner with another, and they nourish themselves from odoriferous flowers, and lay their eggs, thus providing that their species may live after them: […]"
• "The herbaceous or herbiferous produce had such gummy gelatinous properties, that tiniest tiddles incorporated themselves into huge chrysalisses, from whence monster butterflies egged it, all the world over, like snowberries, during a moist September, as soon as the blossom is by!"
• "Caterpillars, chrysalisses soon reveal / The future gandy butterfly."