бабочка

ба́бка (bábka, “old woman, grandmother”) +‎ -ка (-ka), originally a diminutive; from the folk belief that spirits of the dead live on as butterflies.

• IPA^(key): [ˈbabət͡ɕkə]

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ба́бочка • (bábočka) f anim or f inan (genitive ба́бочки, nominative plural ба́бочки, genitive plural ба́бочек)

1. butterfly

   ночна́я ба́бочка ― nočnája bábočka ― moth

2. bowtie
3. (colloquial) feisty, spirited woman
4. (colloquial) prostitute, hooker

Russian does not divide butterflies and moths the same way English does. Russian has мотылёк (motyljók) for a kind of small moth that swarms at night, and моль (molʹ) for the moth that eats clothes, but the other moths are all ба́бочки (bábočki).

• гу́сеница f (gúsenica)
• моль f (molʹ)
• мотылёк m (motyljók)

• Vasmer (Fasmer), Max (Maks) (1964–1973), “бабочка”, in Etimologičeskij slovarʹ russkovo jazyka [Etymological Dictionary of the Russian Language] (in Russian), translated from German and supplemented by Trubačóv Oleg, Moscow: Progress