quword 趣词
Word Origins Dictionary
- fauna[fauna 词源字典]
- fauna: [18] Fauna was a Roman goddess of the countryside, sister of Faunus (the Roman equivalent of Greek Pan) who was a nature and fertility god worshipped by shepherds, farmers, etc. The Swedish naturalist Carolus Linnaeus applied her name in 1746 to his catalogue of the animals of Sweden, Fauna suecica ‘Swedish Fauna’, and it has been used since then as a collective term for the animal life of a region (one of the earliest records of its use in English is by the naturalist Gilbert White in 1771). (Faunus, source of English faun [14], may be related ultimately to Latin favēre ‘regard favourably’, source of English favour.)
=> faun[fauna etymology, fauna origin, 英语词源] - fauna (n.)
- 1771, "the total of the animal life of a certain region or time, from Late Latin Fauna, a rustic Roman fertility goddess who was wife, sister, or daughter (or some combination) of Faunus (see faun).
Popularized by Linnaeus, who adopted it as a companion word to flora and used it in the title of his 1746 catalogue of the animals of Sweden, "Fauna Suecica." First used in English Gilbert White (1720-1793) the parson-naturalist.