fauna
Syllables: fau·na/ˈfɔːnə/
fauna noun: animals considered as a group; especially those of a particular country, region, time, biological group, etc.
Noun
fauna (countable and uncountable, plural faunae or faunas or faunæ)
- Animals considered as a group; especially those of a particular country, region, time, biological group, etc.
- the flora and fauna
- Japanese waters also support a rich and diverse shark fauna, including the smallest known shark Squaliolus laticaudus, and the bizarre goblin shark, Mitsukurina owstoni.1983, Richard Ellis, The Book of Sharks, Knopf, →ISBN, page 199
- A particular group of animals as distinguished from another.
- More than this, at least twenty genera, which are common to New Guinea and Aru, do not extend into Ceram, indicating with a force which every naturalist will appreciate, that the two latter countries have received their faunas in a radically different manner.1869, Alfred Russel Wallace, The Malay Archipelago, volume II, London: Macmillan and Co., page 291
- A book cataloguing the animals of a country.
Proper noun capitalized: Fauna
Fauna
fauna meaning in Hindi, Tamil, Bengali and Malayalam
fauna in Hindi
- animals considered as a group
- प्राणिजात prāṇijāt
fauna in Tamil
- விலங்குவளம், மாவளம்
fauna in Bengali
- প্রাণিকুল, কোনো নির্দিষ্ট অঞ্চল, সময়ের প্রাণীসমূহ
fauna in Malayalam
- ജന്തുവർഗ്ഗം, ഒരു പ്രദേശത്തെ ജന്തുസമുദായം, വനദേവത, പ്രാണിജാലം
More languagesFewer languages
- fauna in Kannada
- ಪ್ರಾಣಿವರ್ಗ, ಪ್ರಾಣಿಸಂಕುಲ
- fauna in Punjabi
- ਜੀਵ-ਜੰਤੂ
- fauna in Gujarati
- પ્રાણીસૃષ્ટિ
- fauna in Malay
- fauna
- fauna in Indonesian
- bebinatangan, dabat, hewanah, satwa
- fauna in Persian
- پوشش جانوری, زیاگان ziyâgân
Examples of fauna in a sentence
- The indigenous fauna of Australia and New Zealand featured an especially interesting array of flightless birds.
- Tucker-Brown explained how lemurs—like much of the “stranded” flora and fauna of Madagascar—are effectively living fossils.
- Its ʽcore faunaʼ consisted of the woolly mammoth, woolly rhino, saiga, muskox and the arctic fox.
Forms of fauna
| Noun | |
|---|---|
| plural | faunae |
| plural | faunas |
| plural | faunæ |
| Proper noun | |
| alternative form | Fatua |
| alternative form | Fenta Fauna |
Origin of fauna
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”).
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.
Words formed from fauna
- aerofauna
- aquafauna
- archaeofauna
- avifauna
- chronofauna
- coprofauna
- cryptofauna
- defaunate
- echinofauna
- endofauna
- endolithofauna
- epifauna
- faunal
- faunic
- faunist
- faunistic
- faunivore
- faunivorous
- faunology
- herpetofauna
- ichnofauna
- ichthyofauna
- infauna
- limnofauna
- macrofauna
- malacofauna
- mastofauna
- megafauna
- meiofauna
- mesofauna
- microfauna
- myrmecofauna
- necrofauna
- nematofauna
- palaeofauna
- paleofauna
- stygofauna
- thanatofauna
Phrases with fauna
Words that rhyme with fauna
Questions about fauna
- What does fauna mean?
- Fauna means animals considered as a group; especially those of a particular country, region, time, biological group, etc.
- What is fauna in Hindi?
- Fauna in Hindi is प्राणिजात (prāṇijāt). See Fauna meaning in Hindi.
- What part of speech is fauna?
- Fauna can be a noun or a proper noun.
- How do you pronounce fauna?
- Fauna is pronounced /ˈfɔːnə/.
- What is the plural of fauna?
- The plural of fauna is faunae.
Words near fauna in the dictionary
Source and license
Adapted from Wiktionary: fauna (page history and authors); Fauna (page history and authors); fauna (Tamil Wiktionary) (page history and authors); Fauna (Bengali Wiktionary) (page history and authors); fauna (Malayalam Wiktionary) (page history and authors); fauna (Kannada Wiktionary) (page history and authors); fauna (Punjabi, IndicTrans2 machine translation) (model and license); fauna (Gujarati, IndicTrans2 machine translation) (model and license). Text available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 license. Word.ws reformatted the entry and added links. Wiktionary data of 2026-09-02.
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Pronunciation audio from Wikimedia Commons, each file under its own free license: LL-Q1860 (eng)-Vealhurl-fauna.wav.
Cite this entry: “fauna.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/fauna. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.