蝶 | dié

In Mandarin Chinese, 蝶 (Pinyin: dié 🔊 or tiě 🔊) is a word for butterfly.

According to Wiktionary, 蝶 is a phono-semantic compound of semantic 虫 (“insect”) and phonetic 枼 which, in turn, is a compound of 世 and 木. The folk etymologist in me wants to see an insect (i.e. butterfly) flying toward a flower or something, but it seems that the 枼 part is indeed purely phonetic: too many words with completely different meanings that include the radical 枼 are pronounced dié, for example 惵, 喋, 堞, 楪, 揲... On the other hand, Lawrence J. Howell in his Etymological Dictionary of Han/Chinese Characters adds a bit more semantics:

枼 is a depiction of three leaves growing from the top of a tree, suggesting slight objects (thin, flat leaves) piled on each other.

And so,

枼 <...> (thin/flat/slight) + 虫 insect → (thin-winged) butterfly.

There are not too many compounds of 蝶. One of them is 蝴蝶 (húdié 🔊) which is another word for butterfly; the 蝴 part is not used on its own.

In Japanese, 蝶 is pronounced chō (🔊). 蝶々さん, Chōchō-san, better known in the West as Cio-Cio-san, is the name of the protagonist of Puccini’s Madama Butterfly, where suffix san is a honorific and 蝶蝶, or 蝶々, chōchō, is just a reduplication of 蝶. It still means “butterfly”.

This beautiful haiku by Issa starts and ends with 蝶:

蝶が來て つれて行きけり 庭の蝶 一茶 Chō ga kite tsurete yuki keri niwa no chō A butterfly came, And flew off With a butterfly in the garden. Issa (Translated by R.H. Blyth)

More photos related to butterflies and calligraphy @ Shutterstock.