fawn

• (UK) IPA^(key): /fɔːn/

• Audio (Southern England)

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• (US) IPA^(key): /fɔn/
• (cot–caught merger) IPA^(key): /fɑn/
• Homophone: faun
• Rhymes: -ɔːn

From Middle English fawne, fowne, foun, from Old French faon, foon, feon,[1] from Vulgar Latin *fētōnem, from Latin fētus (“offspring, young”), from Proto-Indo-European *dʰeh₁(y)- (“to suckle, nurse”). Displaced native Old English hindċealf (literally “deer calf”). Doublet of fetus.

fawn (plural fawns)

1. A young deer.

   Synonym: deerling

2. A pale brown colour tinted with yellow, like that of a fawn.

   fawn:  

3. (obsolete) The young of an animal; a whelp.
   • 1601, C[aius] Plinius Secundus [i.e., Pliny the Elder], “(please specify |book=I to XXXVII)”, in Philemon Holland, transl., The Historie of the World. Commonly Called, The Naturall Historie of C. Plinius Secundus. […], (please specify |tome=1 or 2), London: […] Adam Islip, published 1635, →OCLC:

     she [the tigress] rageth upon the shore and the sands, for the losse of her fawnes

• fawn antechinus
• in fawn

fawn (not comparable)

1. Of the fawn colour.

• fawn lily

fawn (third-person singular simple present fawns, present participle fawning, simple past and past participle fawned)

1. (intransitive) To give birth to a fawn.

From Middle English fawnen, from Old English fagnian, alternative form of fæġnian (“to celebrate”), whence Middle English fainen, English fain.[2] Cognate with Old Norse fagna.[3] See also fain.

fawn (third-person singular simple present fawns, present participle fawning, simple past and past participle fawned)

1. (intransitive) To exhibit affection or attempt to please.
2. (intransitive) To seek favour by flattery and obsequious behaviour (with on or upon).

   Synonyms: grovel, wheedle, soft-soap, toady

   • 1599 (first performance), William Shakespeare, “The Tragedie of Iulius Cæsar”, in Mr. William Shakespeares Comedies, Histories, & Tragedies […] (First Folio), London: […] Isaac Iaggard, and Ed[ward] Blount, published 1623, →OCLC, [Act V, scene i]:

     You showed your teeth like apes, and fawned like hounds.

   • 1671, John Milton, Paradise Regained, book 1:

     Thou with trembling fear, / Or like a fawning parasite, obeyest.

   • 1849–1861, Thomas Babington Macaulay, chapter 23, in The History of England from the Accession of James the Second, volumes (please specify |volume=I to V), London: Longman, Brown, Green, and Longmans, →OCLC:

     courtiers who fawn on a master while they betray him

   • 1918, W[illiam] B[abington] Maxwell, chapter II, in The Mirror and the Lamp, Indianapolis, Ind.: The Bobbs-Merrill Company, →OCLC:

     That the young Mr. Churchills liked—but they did not like him coming round of an evening and drinking weak whisky-and-water while he held forth on railway debentures and corporation loans. Mr. Barrett, however, by fawning and flattery, seemed to be able to make not only Mrs. Churchill but everyone else do what he desired.

3. (intransitive, of a dog) To show devotion or submissiveness by wagging its tail, nuzzling, licking, etc.

• fawn over
• overfawn

fawn (plural fawns)

1. (rare) A servile cringe or bow.
2. Base flattery.

• Appendix:Colors

• faun, faawn

Borrowed from Latin Faunus.

• IPA^(key): /fau̯n/

fawn (plural fawnes or fawny)

1. faun, satyr

• English: faun

• “faun, n.”, in MED Online, Ann Arbor, Mich.: University of Michigan, 2007.

• IPA^(key): /vau̯n/

fawn

1. Soft mutation of bawn.

fawn

1. Soft mutation of mawn.