cabbage butterfly

American  

noun

1. any white or chiefly white butterfly of the family Pieridae, as Pieris rapae, the larvae of which feed on the leaves of cabbages and other related plants.

---

Etymology

Origin of cabbage butterfly

First recorded in 1810–20

Example Sentences

Look for aphids, imported cabbage butterfly larvae and other pesky critters on the underside of the leaves.

From Seattle Times • May 5, 2021

The cloudless clover smells of violets and musk, the cabbage butterfly of mignonette and sweet briar, the yellow swallowtail of "certain brands of honey biscuits."

From Time Magazine Archive

The cabbage butterfly, in its caterpillar state, will sometimes pupate on firewood, often emerges from its cocoon in midwinter, much to the astonishment of gentlemen warming their feet in fireplaces.

From Time Magazine Archive

Field tests are being made in several countries: in France and Germany against larvae of the cabbage butterfly, in Yugoslavia against the fall webworm, in the Soviet Union against a tent caterpillar.

From "Silent Spring" by Rachel Carson

The house-fly has about four thousand eye-lenses; the cabbage butterfly, and the dragon-fly, about seventeen thousand; and some species of beetles have twenty-five thousand.

From Under the Maples by Burroughs, John