An archaic or dialect word for a pheasant, a colorful game bird.
From Old French 'faisan,' derived from Latin 'phasianus,' which comes from Greek 'phasianos' (the bird from Phasis, a river in the Caucasus). The word traveled west as the bird itself did.
The Phasis River in ancient Georgia was so famous for pheasants that the Greeks named the entire bird after its homeland—imagine if we called chickens 'delawares' after Delaware!
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