1680: fawn and fetus Jul 21, 2019

Although ‘deer’ for a long time through history could just denote any animal (like the German ‘Tier’ ('animal')), 'fauna' is not related to 'fawn'. 'Fauna' comes from the name of a rural Roman goddess, while 'fawn', which also comes from Latin, shares a root with the word 'fetus'. The only reason why they are different is because 'fetus' is directly from Latin, and 'fawn' came from Old French.

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