hauterfly n. a fashion industry insider or a person heavily involved in the industry’s social scene. Etymological Note: Probably haute couture + butterfly or gadfly. (source: Double-Tongued Dictionary)
Further reading
Joan from Buffalo, New York, wants to know how to spell a particular word that means to spiff up, clean up, straighten, or fix. The word is zhuzh, which has had dozens of different spellings over the years because it’s primarily transmitted...
One of the most powerful words you’ll ever hear — and one of the most poignant — isn’t in dictionaries yet. But it probably will be one day. The word is endling, and it means “the last surviving member of a species.” The...