Fauna

//ˈfɔːnə// name, noun

name, noun ·Moderate ·College level

Definitions

Noun
  1. 1
    Animals considered as a group; especially those of a particular country, region, time. uncountable

    "the flora and fauna"

  2. 2
    a living organism characterized by voluntary movement wordnet
  3. 3
    A book, cataloguing the animals of a country. countable
  4. 4
    all the animal life in a particular region or period wordnet
Proper Noun
  1. 1
    The goddess of animals, nature, spring and fertility; she is also the consort of Faunus. Roman
  2. 2
    A female given name from Latin.

Synonyms

All synonyms
and fishanimalanimalanimal kingdomanimal lifeanimalia

Antonyms

All antonyms
flora

Example

More examples

"The island's unique flora and fauna must be protected."

Etymology

Etymology 1

Borrowed from New Latin fauna, from Latin Fauna, sister of Faunus (“god of forests and herdsmen”); akin to Ancient Greek θαῦνον (thaûnon, “wild animal, beast”), θώς (thṓs, “jackal, wild dog; panther”), Phrygian δάος (dáos, “wolf”).

Etymology 2

Feminine form of Faunus. Some refer it to Proto-Indo-European *dʰeh₂w-, whence Ancient Greek θαῦνον (thaûnon, “beast”), Illyrian-related Daunus. Some refer it to faveō.

More for "fauna"

SynonymsSentencesPronunciationTranslate

Next best steps

Find stronger synonymsSee usage examplesCheck pronunciationBrowse writing guides

Data sourced from Wiktionary, WordNet, CMU, and other open linguistic databases. Updated March 2026.