A Faunamorph is a word or phrase that refers to or reflects fauna  (animals) in order to describe something other than that animal.

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Ready to talk turkey? Then let’s not beat around the bush!

 

At one time or another, we’ve probably all used the term “anthropomorphic” or “anthropomorphize” – i.e., to attribute human behavior or characteristics to a being or object not human, especially an animal. Well, fair is fair, so I decided to coin a converse term: “faunamorphic.” In short, just as we humans tend to anthropomorphize animals, we have a strong penchant to “faunamorphize” one another. We love to ascribe animal forms, attributes, behaviors, and traits to humans. When we do so, we employ words or phrases that can be called faunamorphs (our very own, patented/copyrighted, neologism). Our Lexicon collects and categorizes many thousands of examples as a result of 33+ years of ferreting out peachy words and phrases.

 

The most obvious faunamorphs are direct comparisons of people with animals: top dog, tomcat, horse-faced, mulish. At other times, faunamorphs are “as-if” words – metaphors  such as “to feather your nest” or similes like “busy as a beaver.” Note, too, that many faunamorphs refer to humans by using animal parts (horny, hoof it, tail someone, paw one another), animal products (milk the system, cream the other team, vote for pork, honeyed words), animal sounds (what a hoot!, tell a howler, buzz saw), and so on. Hence, faunamorphs entail more than just the ways in which animals look or act. 

 

For example, still other faunamorphs refer to the relationship between humans and animals (“to get right back on your horse and ride it”), or to an animal-human situation (“to shut the barn door after the cows have gotten out”), rather than to a specific animal behavior or characteristic. They should be in the lexicon, too, so holy mackerel! They’re in.