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fawn

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Etymology and origin of the English word fawn

Pronunciation

  • UK: /fɔːn/[1]

fawn1 to flatter, show servile affection

Confidence
Established
Formation
Inherited
First attested
1000 before 1000, as Old English fagnian
Inherited from
Old English fagnian via Middle English
Ultimate origin
Proto-Germanic *faʒanaz

Etymology

The verb meaning to flatter is inherited from Middle English faunen, also fagnen and fauhnen,[2][3][4] inherited from Old English fagnian (“to rejoice, be glad”),[2][4][5][6][7] also fahnian,[8][9][10] which sits beside fægnian.[7][10][11] The two Old English verbs come from different forms of one adjective, fagen and fægen (“glad”),[10][8][6] the source of fain,[10][12] so the OED treats the English verb as apparently a variant of fain with a specialised sense.[10] Sievers explained the divergent forms by suffix ablaut in primitive Old English.[10] The verb has cognates in Old Saxon faganōn, Old High German faganōn, Old Norse fagna and Gothic 𐍆𐌰𐌲𐌹𐌽𐍉𐌽 (faginōn),[7][13] and Orel reconstructs Proto-Germanic *faʒanōjanan, from *faʒanaz.[13] Hoad finds the further origin unknown,[7] while Etymonline, after Watkins, and Köbler suggest Proto-Indo-European *pek- (“to make pretty”).[4][14] Johnson (1755) thought the word of uncertain origin, and perhaps a contraction of French fanfan, a term of fondness for children.[15]

Earliest recorded meaning

In Old English, to rejoice, to be delighted with, to wish for: Bosworth–Toller quotes Herodes fagnode from the Gospel of Luke (23:8), where the Latin has gavisus est.[16] Dictionary.com dates the verb to before 1000.[11] As fawn it is first recorded in the Ancrene Riwle, which the OED dates to before 1250 and reads as an animal showing delight,[10] and Barnhart dates to about 1225 and reads as courting favour.[6]

Semantic evolution

Ayto notes that the verb did not begin with any idea of servility: it was the way dogs showed that they were happy.[12] Weekley points out that the Old English compound on-fægnian was already used of dogs.[9] Middle English writers applied it to the wagging of a dog's or lion's tail, to a lamb looking for its mother and even to the song of the nightingale.[2] Chaucer, in the Book of the Duchess (1369), has a whelp that "fauned me as I stood",[2] and the Promptorium Parvulorum (1440) glosses it "as howndys".[2][9] From such expressions of delight came the sense of courting favour by a show of fondness, recorded from about 1325,[10] although Etymonline puts this only in the early 15th century,[4] and Hoad in the 14th.[7] Johnson (1755) still defined it as courting "by frisking".[15] The noun, an act of fawning, was used from 1590 to 1744.[10][17]

Timeline

  • before 1000 – Old English fagnian, to rejoice.[11][16]
  • before 1250 – of an animal, especially a dog, to show delight or fondness.[10]
  • c. 1325 – to show a servile fondness; to court favour by a humble manner.[10]
  • before 1400 – to caress, to pat (obsolete by 1483); to wag the tail (obsolete).[10][2]
  • 1477 – to fawn on, of a dog, to show delight at someone's presence.[10]
  • 1590 – noun, an act of fawning (obsolete by 1744).[10]

Meanings

Verb

  1. To seek favour by flattery or a servile, cringing manner, often with on, upon or over: The courtiers fawned on the young prince.[3][10][17]
  2. Of an animal, especially a dog, to show delight or affection, as by wagging the tail or whining.[3][10][17]
  3. (obsolete, before 1400–1483) To caress.[10][17]

Noun

  1. (obsolete, 1590–1744) An act of fawning; a servile cringe.[10][17][3]

Word family

  • fawner
  • fawningly
  • fawningness
  • outfawn

fawn2 young deer

Confidence
Established
Formation
Borrowing
First attested
1338 before 1338, as fowen in Mannyng's Chronicle
Borrowed from
Anglo-Norman feun via Middle English
Ultimate origin
Latin fētus

Etymology

The word for a young deer is inherited from Middle English foun, also fowen, foine and fawn,[2][6] borrowed from Anglo-Norman feun, also foon,[18] the Anglo-French form, recorded from the late 13th century,[4] of Old French faon (“young animal”), also foun and feon.[10][2][5][4] The Old French word comes from Vulgar Latin *fētō, accusative *fētōnem,[6][4][8][7] which the OED classes as medieval and the Shorter Oxford as Proto-Romance,[10][17] from Latin fētus (“a bringing forth; offspring”),[10][4][5][12] the source of fetus.[12][6] Etymonline and the American Heritage Dictionary derive the Latin noun from Proto-Indo-European *dhē(i)- (“to suck”).[4][5] Klein compares Old Occitan fedon (“lamb”).[8] Johnson (1755) derived the French word from an Old French term for a child, probably from Latin infans.[15] The verb meaning to give birth to a fawn comes from the noun,[10][17] or from its French derivative faonner.[2][3]

Earliest recorded meaning

A young deer: fowen, before 1338, in Mannyng's Chronicle,[6] in a list of game with hare, coney and roe.[2] The MED has this in a manuscript of before 1450, and quotes the Wycliffite Bible of before 1382 from an earlier copy.[2] The OED's first record is founes in Chaucer's Book of the Duchess, about 1369,[10][2] and Etymonline dates the word to the mid 14th century.[4]

Semantic evolution

Old French faon meant the young of any animal, and English kept that general sense for a while:[4][12] the MED records it of lions and tigers,[2] Caxton wrote in 1481 that "the lyonnesse hath the first yere fyve fawnes",[9][10] and James I's translation of the Psalms (1603) has "the fawn of unicorns".[12] From the 15th century, however, the young of the deer was the main sense.[12][4] In Shakespeare's Love's Labour's Lost, as Johnson quotes it, the buck is called a fawn in its first year and a pricket in its second.[15] The phrase in fawn describes a pregnant doe.[10][17][19] The colour of the animal's coat, a light yellowish brown, gave the colour name by 1881,[10][4][12] and the Shorter Oxford dates its use as an adjective to the mid 20th century.[17]

Timeline

  • before 1338 – a young deer, as fowen.[6][2]
  • c. 1410 – verb, of a deer, to bear young.[2] The OED's first record is from 1481.[10]
  • 1481 – a young animal of any kind, a cub (obsolete by 1603).[10]
  • 1575 – verb, transitive, of a deer, to bring forth a fawn.[10]
  • 1849 – fawny, inclining to fawn in colour.[10]
  • 1881 – the colour fawn.[10][4]
  • mid 20th century – adjective, of a light yellowish brown.[17]

Meanings

Noun

  1. A young deer, especially one under a year old or still unweaned: A fawn stood at the edge of the clearing.[19][3][10]
  2. A light greyish or yellowish brown.[19][3][17]
  3. in fawn: of a doe, pregnant.[19][10][17]
  4. (obsolete, 1481–1603) The young of any animal; a cub.[10][17]

Adjective

  1. Of a light greyish or yellowish brown: a fawn overcoat.[19][17]

Verb

  1. Of a deer, to give birth to young.[19][3][10]

Word family

  • fawnlike
  • fawny
  • fawn lily

References

  1. ^ Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
  2. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m n o Kurath, Hans; Kuhn, Sherman M.; Lewis, Robert E., eds. (1952–2001), Middle English Dictionary, Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press; online edition ed. Frances McSparran et al. (2000–2018)
  3. ^ a b c d e f g h Merriam-Webster Unabridged Dictionary (2024), online ed., Springfield, Mass.: Merriam-Webster
  4. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m n Harper, Douglas. Online Etymology Dictionary, https://www.etymonline.com
  5. ^ a b c d The American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language (online 2024), 5th ed., Boston: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt
  6. ^ a b c d e f g h Barnhart, Robert K. (1988), The Barnhart Dictionary of Etymology
  7. ^ a b c d e f Hoad, T. F., ed. (1986), The Concise Oxford Dictionary of English Etymology, Oxford: Clarendon Press
  8. ^ a b c d Klein, Ernest. A Comprehensive Etymological Dictionary of the English Language. 2 vols. Amsterdam: Elsevier, 1966–1967.
  9. ^ a b c d Weekley, Ernest (1921), An Etymological Dictionary of Modern English, London: John Murray
  10. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m n o p q r s t u v w x y z 27 28 29 30 31 32 33 34 35 Oxford English Dictionary Online (accessed March 2026), Oxford: Oxford University Press
  11. ^ a b c Dictionary.com Unabridged (2016), based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, New York: Random House
  12. ^ a b c d e f g h Ayto, John (2005), Word Origins: The Secret Histories of English Words from A to Z, 2nd ed., London: A & C Black
  13. ^ a b Orel, Vladimir (2003), A Handbook of Germanic Etymology, Leiden / Boston: Brill
  14. ^ Köbler, Gerhard (2014), Germanisches Wörterbuch, 5th ed., online, koeblergerhard.de/wikiling
  15. ^ a b c d Johnson, Samuel (1755), A Dictionary of the English Language, London; 4th ed. 1773; Johnson's Dictionary Online, ed. Beth Rapp Young et al.
  16. ^ a b Bosworth, Joseph; Toller, T. Northcote (1898), An Anglo-Saxon Dictionary, Oxford: Clarendon Press; Toller, T. Northcote (1921), Supplement
  17. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m n Shorter Oxford English Dictionary on Historical Principles (2002), 5th ed., ed. William R. Trumble and Angus Stevenson, Oxford: Oxford University Press
  18. ^ Merriam-Webster's Collegiate Dictionary (2003), 11th ed., Springfield, Mass.: Merriam-Webster
  19. ^ a b c d e f Collins English Dictionary (2023), Glasgow: HarperCollins

Related etymologies

Cite this entry

“Fawn.” Etymologically, 5 Nov. 2026, etymologically.com/en/fawn. Accessed 5 Nov. 2026.

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