faun
- one of a class of rural deities represented as men with the ears, horns, tail, and later also the hind legs of a goat.
Origin of faun
Examples from the Web for fauns
Historical Examples of fauns
Jeremiah calls them fauns—the dragons with the fauns, which feed upon figs.
The Phantom WorldAugustin Calmet
And fauns and nymphs and satyrs echoed that shout most joyously.
A Book of MythsJean Lang
Their lives seemed linked to that of the trees, like those of Fauns or Dryads.
Paul and VirginiaBernardin de Saint Pierre
They were identical with Fauns, Panes or Sylvani, the human-goat wood-spirits.
Human AnimalsFrank Hamel
The place was fit for Spenser's Pan, with all his fauns and sylvans.
faun
- (in Roman legend) a rural deity represented as a man with a goat's ears, horns, tail, and hind legs
Word Origin for faun
Word Origin and History for fauns
faun
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.
fauns
The Roman name for satyrs, mythical creatures who were part man and part goat.