Etymology Explorer › English

Where does “faun” come from?

Faun comes from Middle English fawn, from Latin Faunus, the name of a Roman woodland deity.

faun (English): A woodland creature with pointed ears, legs, and...

Definitions

  1. A woodland creature with pointed ears, legs, and...

Ancestry of “faun”, step by step

StepLanguageWordMeaning
1Middle Englishfawnfawn, satyr
2LatinFaunusFaunus
3New Latinfaunaanimals
4EnglishavifaunaThe birds, or all the kinds of birds, inhabiting...
5Latinavisa bird; omen, portent; dative/ablative plural of...
6Proto-Italicawisbird
7Proto-Indo-Europeanh₂éwisbird

Words derived from “faun”

  • faunlike
  • faunlet
Every word from Proto-Indo-European h₂éwis →