In Europe, dragonflies have often been seen as sinister. Some English vernacular names, such as "devil's darning needle" and "ear cutter", link them with evil or injury.A Romanian folk tale says that the dragonfly was once a horse possessed by the devil. Swedish folklore holds that the devil uses dragonflies to weigh people's souls.Another Swedish legend holds that trolls use the dragonflies as spindles when weaving their clothes (hence the Swedish word for dragonfly trollslända, lit. "troll's spindle") as well as sending them to poke out the eyes of their enemies.The Norwegian name for dragonflies is "Øyenstikker", which literally means Eye Poker and in Portugal they are sometimes called "Tira-olhos" (Eye snatcher). They are often associated with snakes, as in the Welsh name gwas-y-neidr, "adder's servant".The Southern United States term "snake doctor" refers to a folk belief that dragonflies follow snakes around and stitch them back together if they are injured.The Lithuanian word "Laum žirgis" is a composite word meaning "the Lauma's horse", while in Dutch, Aeshna mixta is called "Paardenbijter" or "horse biter". In some South American countries, dragonflies are also called matacaballo (horse killer), or caballito del diablo (devil's little horse), since they were perceived as harmful, some species being quite large for an insect.

In East Asia and among Native Americans, dragonflies have a far better reputation, one that can also be said to have positively influenced modern day views about dragonflies in most countries, in the same vein as the insect's namesake, the dragon, which has a positive image in the east,but initially had an association with evil in the west.

Dragonfly symbol on a Hopi bowl from Sikyatki archaeological site.For some Native American tribes they represent swiftness and activity, and for the Navajo they symbolize pure water. Dragonflies are a common motif in Zuni pottery; stylized as a double-barred cross, they appear in Hopi rock art and on Pueblo necklaces.It is said in some Native American beliefs that dragonflies are a symbol of renewal after a time of great hardship.

They also have traditional uses as medicine in Japan and China. In some parts of the world they are a food source, eaten either as adults or larvae; in Indonesia, for example, they are caught on poles made sticky with birdlime, then fried in oil as a delicacy.

Vietnamese people have a traditional way to forecast rain by seeing dragonflies: "Chu?n chu?n bay th?p thì mua, bay cao thì n?ng, bay v?a thì râm" (Dragonflies fly at low level, it is rainy; dragonflies fly at high level, it is sunny; dragonflies fly at medium level, it is shadowy).

In some parts of the world it is considered lucky to have a dragonfly land on you, even to the point of yielding seven years of good luck.

In the United States dragonflies and damselflies are sought out as a hobby similar to birding and butterflying, known as oding, from the dragonfly's Latin species name, odonata. Oding is especially popular in Texas, where 225 out of a total of 457 known species of odonates in the world have been observed. With care, dragonflies can be handled and released by Oders, like butterflies.

Images of dragonflies were common in Art Nouveau, especially in jewelry designs.They also appear in posters by modern artists such as Maeve Harris. They have also been used as a decorative motif on fabrics and home furnishings.

In Japan dragonflies symbolize "martial success," due to similarity in the sound of the word "dragonfly" and "victory" in Japanese.As a seasonal symbol, the dragonfly is associated with late summer and early autumn.

More generally, in Japan dragonflies are symbols of courage, strength, and happiness, and they often appear in art and literature, especially haiku. In ancient mythology, Japan was known as Akitsushima, which means "Land of the Dragonflies".The love for dragonflies is reflected by the fact that there are traditional names for almost all of the 200 species of dragonflies found in and around Japan.

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