faun
[fawn]
- one of a class of rural deities represented as men with the ears, horns, tail, and later also the hind legs of a goat.
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Origin of faun
Dictionary.com Unabridged
Based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2018
Examples from the Web for faun
Contemporary Examples
We hope our film Afternoon of a Faun: Tanaquil Le Clercq illuminates the exceptional qualities of Tanny in dance and in life.
Jerome Robbins, also at NYCB, did the same, and she inspired him to create his radical Afternoon of the Faun for her.
The palette was gentle and pretty, focusing on rose pinks, lavenders, dusky mauve, mint, faun and pale lemon.
Historical Examples
I have been finishing the arm of the Faun in that pavilion outside the town.
The Fortunes Of GlencoreCharles James Lever
At last his eyes rested on the Faun, and he remembered at once where he was.
The Fortunes Of GlencoreCharles James Lever
The man addressed was handsome as a faun might be and as a tiger is.
Olive in ItalyMoray Dalton
His descriptive letters to Badollet read like the “Idylls of a Faun.”
Albert GallatinJohn Austin Stevens
The Faun waved his pipes saucily at the Phoenix and gave a wry smile.
David and the PhoenixEdward Ormondroyd
faun
- (in Roman legend) a rural deity represented as a man with a goat's ears, horns, tail, and hind legs
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Word Origin
C14: back formation from Faunes (plural), from Latin Faunus
Collins English Dictionary - Complete & Unabridged 2012 Digital Edition
© William Collins Sons & Co. Ltd. 1979, 1986 © HarperCollins
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Word Origin and History for faun
n.
late 14c., from Latin Faunus, a word of unknown origin. A god of the countryside, worshipped especially by farmers and shepherds, equivalent of Greek Pan. Formerly men with goat horns and tails, later with goat legs, which caused them to be assimilated to satyrs, but they have diverged again lately.
The faun is now regarded rather as the type of unsophisticated & the satyr of unpurified man; the first is man still in intimate communion with Nature, the second is man still swayed by bestial passions. [Fowler]
The plural is fauni.
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Online Etymology Dictionary, © 2010 Douglas Harper