faun

American  

[fawn] / fɔn /

noun

Classical Mythology.

• fauns
  plural

1. 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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faun British  

/ fɔːn /

noun

1. (in Roman legend) a rural deity represented as a man with a goat's ears, horns, tail, and hind legs

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Other Word Forms

Derived Forms

• faunlike
  adjective

Inflected Forms

Nouns

• fauns
  plural

Etymology

Origin of faun

1325–75; Middle English (< Old French faune ) < Latin faunus; cf. Faunus

Explanation

A faun is a mythological creature that's half human and half goat. Go to many art museums and you'll see paintings of fauns cavorting through the forest or playing a flute. The faun first appeared in Roman mythology, and it's turned up in many art forms since then. There are paintings and sculptures of fauns from the 1800s, and a ten-minute symphonic piece by Claude Debussy, called "The Afternoon of a Faun" in English. Nathaniel Hawthorne wrote a book called "The Marble Faun," and the Chronicles of Narnia's character Mr. Tumnus is a faun. The word comes from the Latin Faunus, a god of the countryside.

Example Sentences

See Examples For:

faun fauns

Donatello delivers himself to justice, no longer the preternatural faun but a man of grave responsibility.

From The Wall Street Journal ● Feb. 27, 2026

The excellent Lucien Postlewaite, a kind of faun in his opening solo, ends with a stylish suggestion of drag.

From New York Times ● Jun. 11, 2021

In front of them is a goat-legged faun.

From The Guardian ● Feb. 28, 2020

David Gyasi turns in a wonderful performance as a faun named Agreus, who defies social order and purchases a nice house in a nice community and as one might imagine, the neighbors are not thrilled.

From Salon ● Aug. 29, 2019

The faun seemed harmless, but Percy still found him unsettling.

From "The Son of Neptune" by Rick Riordan

But little actually felt contemporary in this lollipops program of swans and fauns that, musically at least, might have been one of those old-timey Hollywood Bowl “Rhapsody Under the Stars.”

From Los Angeles Times ● Jul. 21, 2022

He has begun the long work of cataloging the statues who inhabit each room, classical-style representations of fauns, men fighting beasts, or children at play.

From Slate ● Sep. 10, 2020

Everybody has in the back of their mind the idea of fauns as lecherous forest creatures or fairies as deceitful shape-shifters.

From The Verge ● Sep. 10, 2019

You can imagine its dancers as dragonflies, fauns, larks — though any such illusions or allusions come and go.

From New York Times ● Jan. 6, 2017

The others at Camp Jupiter saw him as a traveling oddball, about as harmless as the fauns.

From "The Son of Neptune" by Rick Riordan