Fesaunt

Part of speech: noun

Definitions

1. An obsolete form of the word for a long-tailed game bird with brightly colored plumage that is often hunted for sport
2. An archaic spelling denoting a large, colorful ground-dwelling bird with a long tail, prized in medieval hunting
3. A old-fashioned name for a species of game bird, typically with striking feathers, once common in medieval English writing

Etymology: Before "pheasant" became standard, English spelled the bird "fesaunt," a form the Middle English writers borrowed from Anglo-Norman. Its distant ancestor is the Greek "phasianos," meaning "of the Phasis," a river in Colchis on the eastern Black Sea coast, in what is now Georgia. Greek writers associated the bird with that river, and Roman writers took the name as "phasianus." Later Latin and French forms carried it into Old French as "faisan," the direct source of the English word. A famous legend claims that the Argonauts, the heroes who sailed with Jason for the Golden Fleece, brought the bird back from Colchis to Greece. The story is a myth, but it explains why the bird carried the river's name. Its ancient home was the region around the Phasis, and the Greeks gave it a name that tied it to that place.