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fauve

Pronunciation: /fov/

“fauve” is a French word. Its 10 meanings in English:

adjective

  1. tawny
  2. savage, fierce (having the ferocity of a wild animal)
  3. dangerous, wild
  4. fauvist

noun

  1. tawny-coloured animal
  2. a big cat, such as a lion or lynx
  3. beast, wild animal, especially fierce, aggressive, or predatory. Usually implies adding big bears like the Black, Brown and Polar ones. Sometimes extends up to the wolverine, wolf, etc. More rarely, big, aggressive and/or hard to meet cervid game might go under this umbrella term as well.
  4. a violent or aggressive man or woman
  5. a brownish orange color, tawny
  6. examiner

In French

  1. De la couleur ocre orangé à roux.
  2. Qui a la violence, l’avidité, la férocité d’une bête fauve.
  3. Sauvage, dangereux, ayant un rapport animal par opposition avec l’être humain.
  4. Qui est relatif au fauvisme.
  5. Animal, bête, de couleur fauve.
  6. Félin de grande taille.
  7. Animal féroce, dangereux, avec un comportement de prédateur.
  8. Homme à l’aspect puissant, souple et avec une forte personnalité, pouvant être rapproché avec un animal.
  9. Couleur ocre orangé à roux.
  10. Examinateur.

Etymology

Inherited from Middle French fauve, from Old French falve, from Late Latin falvus, a borrowing from Frankish *falu, *falw- (compare Dutch vaal, English fallow and German falb), from Proto-Germanic *falwaz (“pale, grey”). The adjectival sense of "savage, fierce" comes from the noun sense "wild animal," which is in turn a shortening of bête au pelage fauve (“animal with tawny fur”).

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Definitions are from Wiktionary, extracted by Kaikki.org, and are available under the CC BY-SA 4.0 licence. Definitions in French are from the French Wiktionary, under the same licence.