fawn

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"Mercy! it cannot be the fawn was a forerunner!

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Definitions (23)

Toggle American Heritage definitions American Heritage Dictionary (5)

  1. intransitive verb To exhibit affection or attempt to please, as a dog does by wagging its tail, whining, or cringing.
  2. intransitive verb To seek favor or attention by flattery and obsequious behavior.
  3. Syntax Note
    Synonyms: fawn1, apple-polish, bootlick, kowtow, slaver1, toady, truckle
    These verbs mean to curry favor by behaving obsequiously and submissively: fawned on her superior; students apple-polishing the teacher; bootlicked to get a promotion; lawyers kowtowing to a judge; slavered over his rich uncle; toadying to members of the club; nobles truckling to the king.

Toggle Century definitions Century Dictionary (8)

Toggle GNU Webster definitions GNU Webster's 1913 (5)

Toggle WordNet definitions WordNet (5)

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Examples (50)

  • The fawn, far more desirable than its elder, could be had for the mere finding But the fawn had already learned one of the most important lessons of life and this bit of knowledge had saved him from an untimely end no fewer than seven times during his ten days on earth Now, the fawn was prettily spotted, and most persons who delve into such matters and try to reconcile cause and effect, particularly from a distant point of view, would have said that this coloration was the means of rendering it, crouching among the ferns with head and neck flattened to the ground, invisible to its enemies. —  The Black Phantom
  • But you see the fawn is here with Athena of the dew, though she has no lyre; and I have myself no doubt that in this particular relation to the gods of morning it always stands as the symbol of wavering and glancing motion on the ground, as well as of the light and shadow through the leaves, chequering the ground as the fawn is dappled. —  Lectures on Art Delivered before the University of Oxford in Hilary term, 1870
  • At the foot of the mountain were the warm baths of Himera The term Nebros, which was substituted by the Greeks for Nimrod, signifying a fawn, gave occasion to many allusions about a fawn, and fawn-skin, in the Dionusiaca, and other mysteries. —  A New System; or, an Analysis of Antient Mythology. Volume I.
  • Through breaks in their ranks the blue and purple of the hills shone startlingly vivid and beyond the prairie lay like a fawn-colored sea across which dark shadows trailed The ford was nearly a mile wide, a shallow current, in some places only a glaze, but with shifting sands stirring beneath it. —  The Emigrant Trail
  • And as soon as her body was in ashes the spell was removed from the fawn, and he took human shape again; and then the sister and brother lived happily together until the end RAPUNZEL THERE once lived a man and his wife, who had long wished for a child, but in vain. —  Household Stories by the Brothers Grimm
 

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Roget's II Roget's II: The New Thesaurus

Allen's Allen's Synonyms and Antonyms

Used in the same context Used in the Same Context

obsequious ·  servile ·  abject ·  deer ·  deferential ·  hypocritical ·  insincere ·  kitten ·  submissive ·  ingratiate ·  cowardly ·  fulsome

Used in the same contextWord Family

fawn:   fawning ·  fawned
Roget's II: The New Thesaurus, Third Edition by the Editors of the American Heritage® Dictionary. Copyright © 2003, 1995 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. All rights reserved.

Etymologies (6)

Toggle American Heritage etymologies American Heritage Dictionary (2)

  1. Middle English faunen, from Old English fagnian, to rejoice, from fagen, fægen, glad.
  2. Middle English, from Old French foun, faon, feon, young animal, from Vulgar Latin *fētō, *fētōn-, from Latin fētus, offspring; see dhē(i)- in Indo-European roots.

Toggle Century etymologies Century Dictionary (4)

  1. from Middle English fawnen, faunen, fauhnen, faugnen, another form, due to Icelandic fagna, of the reg. Middle English fagnien, faynen, fainen, modern English fain, v., be glad, receive with joy, make joyful, fawn as a dog, from Anglo-Saxon fægenian, fægnian, be glad, etc., from fægen, glad, fain: see fain.
  2. from fawn, v. i.
  3. from Middle English fawn, fawne, fowne, from Old French fan, faon, earlier feon, a fawn, a young deer, also applied to the young of other animals, modern F. faon, a fawn; prob. from Middle Latin *fetonus (cf. Provencal feda, fea, a sheep), from Latin fetus, adjective, pregnant, breeding, fetus, n., the young of animals, offspring, progeny: see fetus.
  4. from fawn, n., after Old French and F. faonncr, bring forth a fawn.
 

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/fɔn/
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