Examples of lepidoptera in a Sentence
Recent Examples on the Web
Many lepidoptera are picky eaters and will dine only on certain plants.
—
Jeanette Marantos, Los Angeles Times, 1 Apr. 2025
This watch sends butterflies around the dial as violets dance in an imaginary breeze for 12 seconds before returning those tiny lepidoptera to display the time on a retrograde scale.
—Allen Farmelo, Robb Report, 12 Apr. 2024
While in the Eje Cafetero, check-out the lepidoptera at Jardin Botánico de Quindío, where some 50 species flit about a netted enclosure. Yellow butterflies flew around Gabriel García Márquez's grandparents' house in Aracataca, where he was born and lived as a child.
—Christopher Baker, Travel + Leisure, 7 Jan. 2022
Want to explore your local lepidoptera?
—Catherine Hoffman, Discover Magazine, 13 June 2017
How exactly did a space dedicated to the study and preservation of the lepidoptera land in the crosshairs of far-right extremists?
—Fidel Martinez, Los Angeles Times, 3 Feb. 2022
And its butterfly garden allowed visitors to walk through a room brimming with hundreds of monarchs, common sergeants, tailed jays and other fluttering lepidoptera.
—Jerry Dicolo | Staff Writer, NOLA.com, 5 Sep. 2020
Biologists have long hypothesized that the evolutionary transformation within the species lepidoptera could be traced back to the moths’ understandable desire to avoid getting eaten by nocturnal bats.
—Sarah Todd, Quartz at Work, 23 Oct. 2019
Most moths are nocturnal; butterflies are essentially moths that have evolved to be diurnal, or active during the day, says Robert Robbins, a curator of lepidoptera at the National Museum of Natural History.
—Anna Diamond, Smithsonian, 19 Apr. 2018
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Jeanette Marantos, Los Angeles Times, 1 Apr. 2025
This watch sends butterflies around the dial as violets dance in an imaginary breeze for 12 seconds before returning those tiny lepidoptera to display the time on a retrograde scale.
—Allen Farmelo, Robb Report, 12 Apr. 2024
While in the Eje Cafetero, check-out the lepidoptera at Jardin Botánico de Quindío, where some 50 species flit about a netted enclosure. Yellow butterflies flew around Gabriel García Márquez's grandparents' house in Aracataca, where he was born and lived as a child.
—Christopher Baker, Travel + Leisure, 7 Jan. 2022
Want to explore your local lepidoptera?
—Catherine Hoffman, Discover Magazine, 13 June 2017
How exactly did a space dedicated to the study and preservation of the lepidoptera land in the crosshairs of far-right extremists?
—Fidel Martinez, Los Angeles Times, 3 Feb. 2022
And its butterfly garden allowed visitors to walk through a room brimming with hundreds of monarchs, common sergeants, tailed jays and other fluttering lepidoptera.
—Jerry Dicolo | Staff Writer, NOLA.com, 5 Sep. 2020
Biologists have long hypothesized that the evolutionary transformation within the species lepidoptera could be traced back to the moths’ understandable desire to avoid getting eaten by nocturnal bats.
—Sarah Todd, Quartz at Work, 23 Oct. 2019
Most moths are nocturnal; butterflies are essentially moths that have evolved to be diurnal, or active during the day, says Robert Robbins, a curator of lepidoptera at the National Museum of Natural History.
—Anna Diamond, Smithsonian, 19 Apr. 2018
Cite this Entry
“Lepidoptera.” Merriam-Webster.com Dictionary, Merriam-Webster, https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/lepidoptera. Accessed 24 May. 2025.
Copy CitationKids Definition
lepidoptera
plural noun
lep·i·dop·tera
ˌlep-ə-ˈdäp-tə-rə 
: insects that are lepidopterans
Medical Definition
lepidoptera
noun plural
lep·i·dop·tera
ˌlep-ə-ˈdäp-tə-rə
1
capitalized
: a large order of insects comprising the butterflies, moths, and skippers that as adults have four broad or lanceolate wings usually covered with overlapping and often brightly colored scales and that as larvae are caterpillars
2
: insects of the order Lepidoptera
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