Gender role, which refers to the cultural expectations as understood by gender classification, is not the same thing as gender identity, which refers to the internal sense of one's own gender, whether or not it aligns with
Definition of butterfly effect : a property of chaotic systems (such as the atmosphere) by which small changes in initial conditions can lead to large-scale and unpredictable variation in the future state of the system
Also found in: Dictionary, Thesaurus, Medical, Financial, Acronyms, Idioms, Wikipedia. Related to butterfly: butterfly effect, butterfly stroke, Butterfly swimming. any of a large group of insectsinsect, invertebrate animal of the class Insecta of the phylum Arthropoda. Like other arthropods, an insect has a hard outer covering, or exoskeleton, a segmented body, and jointed legs. Adult insects typically have wings and are the only flying invertebrates.