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fawn [fawn 词源字典]: fawn: Fawn ‘young deer’ [14] and fawn ‘grovel’ [13] are two distinct words. The latter did not always have the negative associations of ‘servility’ which it usually carries today. Originally it simply referred to dogs showing they were happy – by wagging their tails, for instance. It was a derivative of Old English fægen ‘happy’, an adjective of Germanic origin which survives in the archaic fain ‘willingly’ (as in ‘I would fain go’). Fawn ‘young deer’ comes via Old French faon ‘young of an animal’ and Vulgar Latin *fētō from Latin fētus ‘giving birth, offspring’ (whence English foetus).

The general sense ‘young of an animal’ survived into the early 17th century in English (James I’s translation of the Psalms, for instance, in 1603, has ‘the fawn of unicorns’ in Psalm 29, where the Authorized Version simply refers to ‘a young unicorn’), but on the whole ‘young of the deer’ seems to have been the main sense of the word from the 15th century onwards.

Its use as a colour term, after the pale yellowish brown of a young deer’s coat, dates from the 19th century.
=> fain, foetus[fawn etymology, fawn origin, 英语词源]
fawn (v.): Old English fægnian "rejoice, be glad, exult, applaud," from fægen "glad" (see fain); used in Middle English to refer to expressions of delight, especially a dog wagging its tail (early 13c.), hence "court favor, grovel, act slavishly" (early 14c.). Related: Fawned; fawning.
swag (v.): "to move heavily or unsteadily," 1520s, probably from a Scandinavian source akin to Old Norse sveggja "to swing, sway," from the same source as Old English swingan "to swing" (see swing (v.)). Related: Swagged; swagging.
tail (n.1): "hindmost part of an animal," Old English tægl, tægel "a tail," from Proto-Germanic *tagla- (cognates: Old High German zagal, German Zagel "tail," dialectal German Zagel "penis," Old Norse tagl "horse's tail," Gothic tagl "hair"), from PIE *doklos, from suffixed form of root *dek- (2) "something long and thin" (referring to such things as fringe, lock of hair, horsetail; cognates: Old Irish dual "lock of hair," Sanskrit dasah "fringe, wick"). According to OED, the primary sense, at least in Germanic, seems to have been "hairy tail," or just "tuft of hair," but already in Old English the word was applied to the hairless "tails" of worms, bees, etc. But Buck writes that the common notion is of "long, slender shape." As an adjective from 1670s.

Meaning "reverse side of a coin" (opposite the side with the head) is from 1680s; that of "backside of a person, buttocks" is recorded from c. 1300; slang sense of "pudenda" is from mid-14c.; that of "woman as sex object" is from 1933, earlier "act of copulation" with a prostitute (1846). Of descending strokes of letters, from 1590s.

Tails "coat with tails" is from 1857. The tail-race (1776) is the part of a mill race below the wheel. To turn tail "take flight" (1580s) originally was a term in falconry. The image of the tail wagging the dog is attested from 1907. Another Old English word for "tail" was steort (see stark).
wag (v.): early 13c. (intransitive), "waver, vacillate, lack steadfastness," probably from a Scandinavian source (compare Old Norse vagga "a cradle," Danish vugge "rock a cradle," Old Swedish wagga "fluctuate, rock" a cradle), and in part from Old English wagian "move backwards and forwards;" all from Proto-Germanic *wag- (cognates: Old High German weggen, Gothic wagjan "to wag"), probably from PIE root *wegh- "to move about" (see weigh).

Transitive meaning "move (something) back and forth or up and down" is from c. 1300; of dogs and their tails from mid-15c.: "and whanne they [hounds] see the hure maystre they wol make him cheere and wagge hur tayles upon him." [Edward, Duke of York, "The Master of Game," 1456]. Related: Wagged; wagging. Wag-at-the-wall (1825) was an old name for a hanging clock with pendulum and weights exposed.
wag (n.2): "act of wagging," 1580s, from wag (v.).