Faun or fawn?
faun is a noun meaning “A woodland creature with pointed ears, legs, and short horns of a goat and a…”; fawn is a noun meaning “A young deer”. They sound the same (/fɔːn/). In written English (wordfreq, 2021 data) fawn is about 4.0 times as common as faun.
What is the difference between faun and fawn?
| faun | fawn | |
|---|---|---|
| Part of speech | noun | noun, adjective, verb |
| Meaning | A woodland creature with pointed ears, legs, and short horns of a goat and a fondness for unrestrained revelry Any of various nymphalid butterflies of the genus Faunis | A young deer A pale brown colour tinted with yellow, like that of a fawn Of the fawn colour |
| Example | none recorded | none recorded |
| Forms | fauns | fawns |
| Pronunciation | /fɔːn/ /fɔn/ /fɑn/ | /fɔːn/ /foːn/ /fɔn/ |
| In writing | about once in every 4 million words | 1.0 times per million words |
Sources: faun and fawn in the English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0); written frequency: wordfreq 3.1 (a 2021 snapshot of Wikipedia, subtitles, news, books, web text and social media).
Every current meaning of faun and fawn
faun
- 1
A woodland creature with pointed ears, legs, and short horns of a goat and a fondness for unrestrained revelry
- 2
Any of various nymphalid butterflies of the genus Faunis
fawn
- 1
A young deer
- 2
Of the fawn colour
- 3
To give birth to a fawn
- 4
To show devotion or submissiveness by wagging its tail, nuzzling, licking, etc
- 5
Base flattery
- 6
A pale brown colour tinted with yellow, like that of a fawn
- 7
To exhibit affection toward someone
- 8
To attempt to please someone
Source: the English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0); obsolete, archaic, dialect and rare senses left out.
Which is more common, faun or fawn?
faun appears about once in every 4 million words; fawn 1.0 times per million words.
faun about once in every 4 million wordsfawn 1.0 times per million words
Source: written frequency: wordfreq 3.1 (a 2021 snapshot of Wikipedia, subtitles, news, books, web text and social media).
How many people search faun vs fawn?
“faun vs fawn” is searched about 210 times a month on Google and 20 on Bing in the United States. Google counts close variants of a query together (“fawn vs faun”, “faun or fawn”).
Sources: Google Ads keyword data through DataForSEO and Microsoft Advertising keyword data through DataForSEO, the average month from September 2025 to August 2026.