Q: My daughter and I were watching a DVD of the 1942 Disney film Bambi when I thought of this question: Is the verb “fawn” (to show affection or flatter) related to the noun “fawn” (a young deer)?
A: No, the words aren’t related. The verb comes from the Old English fægnian or fægenian (to rejoice or applaud) while the noun comes from the Old French faon or feon (a young animal).
In Old English, fægnian meant “to be delighted or glad, rejoice,” according to the Oxford English Dictionary. In Middle English, the verb (spelled fayne, faine, fawn, etc.) took on its affectionate and flattering senses.
The earliest OED citation for the verb, which we’ve expanded here, is from an Old English translation of De Consolatione Philosophiae, a sixth-century Latin treatise by the Roman philosopher Boethius:
“Ne sceal he na be hræ þor to ungemetlice fægnian ðæs folces worda” (“He must not fawn [rejoice] too immoderately at the people’s words”).
When the affectionate/flattering sense appeared in Middle English, the OED says, it originally referred to the efforts of an animal, especially a dog, “to show delight or fondness (by wagging the tail, whining, etc.).”
In its first recorded use, the dictionary says, the verb is implied in the gerund (“fawning”). The citation, from the anonymous Ancrene Riwle, or rules for anchoresses, dates from sometime before 1200.
This passage offers advice on how to respond to the “fawning” (uawenunge) of the Devil, who is referred to earlier as “Þene helle dogge” (“the hell hound”):
“Spet him amidde þe bearde to hoker ⁊ to schom, þet flikereð so mit þe, ⁊ fikeð mid dogge uawenunge” (“Spit on him amid the beard to scorn and to shame him, the one who so flatters thee and woos with doglike fawning”).
The first OED citation for the verb used explicitly in the sense of to show affection or flatter is from Piers Plowman (B text, 1377), an allegorical poem by William Langland.
In this passage, which we’ve expanded, wild animals are said to submit before the innocence and righteousness of saints and martyrs:
Ac þere ne was lyoun ne leopart þat on laundes wenten,
Noyther bere, ne bor ne other best wilde,
Þat ne fel to her feet and fauned with þe tailles.(But there was no lion nor leopard that went on lands,
Neither bear, nor boar, nor other wild beast,
That did not fall at their feet and fawn with their tails.)
By the early 14th century, the verb was also being used in reference to human behavior, a sense the OED defines as “to affect a servile fondness; to court favour or notice by an abject demeanour.”
In this sense, “fawn” or “fawning” is often seen in constructions with “on,” “over,” and “upon.”
In the earliest citation, the dictionary says, the verb is implied. The passage, written around 1325, comes from a homily that warns against the temptations of the world, and refers to “fleishshes faunyng” (“fawning upon the flesh”):
“Fyth of other ne he fleo, that fleishshes faunyng furst foreode” (“He need not flee the assault of any other, who first withstood fawning upon the flesh”). From “Middelerd for Mon Wes Mad” (“Middle Earth for Man Was Made”), in The Harley Lyrics (4th edition, 1968), edited by George Leslie Brook.
The OED’s first explicit citation for human fawning is from a Middle English version of a treatise purportedly written by Aristotle for his pupil Alexander the Great. We’ve expanded it here:
“Smothe afore folk to fawnyn and to shyne, / And shewe two facys in Oon hood” (“Smooth [flattering] before people, to fawn and to shine, / And show two faces under one hood”).
The passage is from John Lydgate and Benedict Burgh’s Secrees of Old Philisoffres: A Version of the Secreta Secretorum (circa 1440), a translation from the Latin. Scholars believe Secreta Secretorum originated in Arabic in the 10th century, long after Aristotle (384–322 BC), and was translated into Latin in the 12th century.
After all the philosophical and theological examples above, we’ll end on a lighter note. In our “fawn” research, we came across this headline from the Aug. 14, 2025, issue of the Lodi News-Sentinel in Lodi, CA:
“Lost and fawned: Abandoned deer rescued by Lodi Animal Services.”
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