Other forms: fawns, fawning
To fawn is to flatter somebody with excessive attention. Fawn over him, fawning praise, fawn on the powerful.
It describes behaviour towards somebody with power, and it is always contemptuous — nobody fawns admiringly. The image is a dog rather than a deer. Quite separately, a fawn is a young deer, and fawn is the pale yellowish-brown named after its coat. Note that the two words are unrelated and only look alike.
1verbfawnTo flatter somebody with excessive attention.
“The waiters fawned over the famous actor, bringing him free drinks all night.”
2nounyoungA young deer, or its pale brown colour.
“A fawn with white spots on its back stood beside its mother in the woods.”
fawn is a flattering, or a young deer.
The verb comes from Old English fagnian, to rejoice, related to fain. The young deer is a separate word from Latin fetus, offspring, and gave its name to the colour.
Proto-Indo-European
*dʰeh₁(y)- — to suckle, nurse
Latin
fētus — offspring, young
Vulgar Latin
*feto
Old French
feon
Middle English
foun
English, today
fawn
From Middle English foun, from Old French feon, from Vulgar Latin feto, from Latin fētus (“offspring, young”), from Proto-Indo-European dʰeh₁(y)- (“to suckle, nurse”). Displaced native hindċealf. a doublet of fetus.
Etymology from Wiktionary, CC BY-SA