dragonfly

The English word dragonfly first appears in the early seventeenth century, a compound of dragon and fly. The logic is visual: the insect's long body, large eyes, and veined wings suggested a miniature dragon. But before dragonfly settled into standard English, the insect had dozens of regional names, almost all of them fearful. In parts of England it was the devil's darning needle — capable, folklore claimed, of sewing shut the lips of lying children. In the American South, it was the snake doctor, believed to attend to injured snakes and restore them to health.

Dragonflies are among the oldest flying insects. Fossil dragonflies from the Carboniferous period, roughly 300 million years ago, had wingspans of over two feet. The genus Meganeura, which lived before the dinosaurs, was the largest insect that ever flew. Modern dragonflies are smaller but no less remarkable: they can fly at speeds up to 35 miles per hour, hover, fly backward, and catch prey mid-flight with a success rate above 90 percent. No other predator on earth approaches that efficiency.

Japanese culture treats the dragonfly with a respect that English folk names denied it. The old name for Japan itself — Akitsushima, 'dragonfly island' — appears in the Kojiki, the oldest surviving Japanese text, from 712 CE. Emperor Jinmu supposedly named the land after seeing its shape resemble a dragonfly. The samurai adopted the dragonfly as a symbol of strength and courage because it flies only forward, never retreating. Dragonfly motifs appear on samurai helmets and sword guards from the Edo period.

The English word chose fear. The Japanese word chose honor. The insect is identical in both cases — a ruthlessly efficient aerial predator with 300 million years of evolution behind it. The name dragonfly at least got the predatory part right, even if it exaggerated the scale.