Pavilion

You are out on an amazing spring walk through a park. It's a bit cloudy, but you don't mind because it is warm, there's a light breeze, and general feelings of goodness are permeating the air. Suddenly, a thunder claps, and it starts to pour. Where do you go in such a crisis? To the nearest pavilion (or tree, but that's getting around the point)!

As a park enthusiast, I have always had a great appreciating for these little structures. Some can be quite elaborate (which is always refreshing during the middle of the summer, and you and some friends are trying to enjoy a day on trails and a lake), while others are shabby wooden tents. The AHD has an extensive list of definitions for these structures:

1. An ornate tent
2a. A light roofed structure for amusement or shelter, as at parks
2b. A usually temporary structure housing an exhibition at a fair or show
2c. A large structure housing sports or entertainment facilities; an area
3. A structure or building connected to a larger building; an annex
4. One of the buildings in a complex
5. The lower surface of a brilliant-cut gem, slanting outward from the culet to the girdle

The last one is a bit odd, but whatever. The reason I chose this post was not per se the word itself, but the etymology behind the word. The word comes from Middle English pavilon, which came from Old French pavillon. This in turn arrived from the Latin words papilio, papilion. The second word caught my eye. Last year for my saxophone quartet group, we played "Papillon." It was a French piece that was...interesting. Anywho, the word means "butterfly." And in Latin, this same word means "butterfly" or "tent." If we look at the first definition--"an ornate tent"--then we see that this is quite a poetic thing. Butterflies are beautiful but transitory creatures that captivate us during the spring and summer. A pavilion can be, in a sense, a transitory structure, or it can be an beautiful strucutre enjoyed by all, especially in the spring and summer.