How to Use butterfly effect in a Sentence

butterfly effect

noun
Definition of butterfly effectnext
  • For time travel without all the butterfly effect nonsense, take a drive to Bisbee.
    — Meredith G. White, The Arizona Republic, 22 June 2024
  • So does this mean that the butterfly effect doesn’t exist at all?
    — Sophie Putka, Discover Magazine, 17 Aug. 2020
  • Or could a simple act of kindness have been the butterfly effect that kept him from killing nine people?
    — Kathryn Burak, BostonGlobe.com, 7 Aug. 2019
  • The butterfly effects of even a single make in those 23 misses could have been enormous.
    — Rob Mahoney, SI.com, 1 June 2018
  • This is a butterfly effect that could result in a tsunami.
    — Brandon Hall, Forbes, 21 Oct. 2021
  • Can Barry get around the butterfly effect of his meddling long enough to make his family whole?
    — Michael Phillips, Chicago Tribune, 13 June 2023
  • But surely the butterfly effect of Hillary and Bill’s breakup didn’t prevent the widening of these major rifts in society?
    — Laura Marsh, The New Republic, 19 May 2020
  • What would the butterfly effect be of wearing two different socks for a day, or brushing your teeth with the opposite hand?
    — Melissa Kirsch, New York Times, 22 Jan. 2021
  • There are so many levels to the butterfly effect of this pandemic—not just the sickness but the emotional and mental effects.
    — Liam Hess, Vogue, 13 Aug. 2021
  • Call it the butterfly effect, as applied to fiscal spending.
    — Fortune, 5 Mar. 2021
  • In popular culture, it's best known as the butterfly effect.
    — Caroline Delbert, Popular Mechanics, 13 May 2021
  • The digital butterfly effect is just the concept applied to the digital world.
    — Bob McKay, Forbes, 27 Jan. 2023
  • In this case, the butterfly effect could be significant.
    — Ira Winderman, Sun Sentinel, 4 June 2022
  • Your acts of kindness can produce the butterfly effect as your kind behavior triggers more kindness throughout the world.
    — Womensmedia, Forbes, 13 Nov. 2021
  • The butterfly effect, there for all to see in every roadside murmuration.
    — New York Times, 11 Apr. 2022
  • Well, in chaos theory, the butterfly effect is the phenomenon where a small change in a complex system can have large effects elsewhere.
    — Noelle Devoe, Seventeen, 9 Feb. 2018
  • Change one detail and, via the butterfly effect, all manner of subsequent ones also alter.
    — Darran Anderson, The Atlantic, 17 June 2018
  • Straub is not so much concerned with time travel mechanics, the butterfly effect, or killing baby Hitler (or whatever the 1990s equivalent of that moral test would be).
    — Barbara Vandenburgh, USA TODAY, 15 May 2022
  • In short, while the show and comics have had similarities and differences in the past, all these changes have created a butterfly effect that here in the finale, the show really cannot look remotely like the end of the comics.
    — Paul Tassi, Forbes, 9 Oct. 2022
  • In the famous adage about the butterfly effect, the flap of wings from a butterfly in, say, Africa can aerodynamically affect the formation of a hurricane in, say, the Atlantic.
    — Daniel Garisto, Scientific American, 7 Oct. 2021
  • These were the accidents of history, the butterfly effect that ran through the three very different societies my pilgrimage had taken me to.
    — Aatish Taseer, New York Times, 9 Nov. 2023
  • In an odd occurrence of the butterfly effect, the bombing is the entire reason Balderrama pursued a career in law enforcement.
    — Los Angeles Times, 23 Feb. 2022
  • People may be familiar with the butterfly effect, the theory that a slight change can drastically affect the future.
    — Clayton Davis, Variety, 9 Nov. 2023
  • But because the star is nonchaotic, there is no butterfly effect; paths that converge stay correlated.
    — Quanta Magazine, 10 Mar. 2015
  • Some have argued that even tiny quantum nudges could nonetheless control brain activity, because of the butterfly effect: a small change might lead, indirectly, to a big one, in the complex system of the brain.
    — Neuroskeptic, Discover Magazine, 22 Dec. 2013
  • Unlike a Hollywood script where the butterfly effect takes cascading events and neatly organizes them, real life is less precise and messy.
    — Rod Berger, Forbes, 4 May 2021
  • Out of the complexity of the global sand trade has emerged something of a butterfly effect, in which an economic decision in one place can wreak social and environmental havoc on the other side of the world.
    — Eoin O'Carroll, The Christian Science Monitor, 14 Sep. 2017
  • To enjoy the film, audiences will have to let go of ideas of causality, the butterfly effect, alternate timelines or any of that good stuff that causes complications in time-travel stories.
    — Michael Ordoña, Los Angeles Times, 14 Oct. 2021
  • Fans all over social media have made the connection between the butterfly effect and Stormi’s name, pointing out chaos theory in the idea that a butterfly flapping its wings can create a storm somewhere far away.
    — Jen Juneau, PEOPLE.com, 17 Apr. 2018
  • This brainy series imagines a butterfly effect leading to a more robust space exploration program and reshaping our history and culture.
    — Randy Myers, The Mercury News, 25 Jan. 2024

Some of these examples are programmatically compiled from various online sources to illustrate current usage of the word 'butterfly effect.' Any opinions expressed in the examples do not represent those of Merriam-Webster or its editors. Send us feedback about these examples.

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