English
fun
Fun probably comes from Middle English fonne, fon ‘foolish, simple, silly’ or fonnen ‘to make a fool of’, via a 17th-century verb fun ‘to cheat, trick’.
attested reconstructed ? uncertain or disputed deepest recorded ancestor
- 1 Wiktionary, English fun
- Earliest quotation in Wiktionary’s entry: 2000, Robert Stanley, The Complete Idiot's Guide to Adobe Photoshop 6: “Grafting your boss's face onto the hind end of…”.
Lineage
- Middle Englishc. 1150–1500fonneWiktionary, English fun‘foolish, simple, silly’uncertain
- Englishearliest quotation 2000funWiktionary, English fun. Earliest quotation in Wiktionary’s entry: 2000, Robert Stanley, The Complete Idiot's Guide to Adobe Photoshop 6: “Grafting your boss's face onto the hind end of…”
The story
From Middle English fonne, fon (‘foolish, simple, silly’) or fonnen (‘make a fool of’), from Middle English fonne (‘a fool, dupe’), probably of North Germanic origin, related to Swedish fånig (‘foolish’), Swedish fåne (‘a fool’), from Old Norse fáni (‘vain person, swaggerer’), but of unknown ultimate origin.uncertain The source flags this step as uncertain. Perhaps related to or influenced by fjäll (‘rock, cliff, mountain’). As a noun, fun is recorded from 1700, with a meaning “a cheat, trick, hoax”, from a verb fun meaning “to cheat, trick” (1680s). The meaning “diversion, amusement” dates to the 1720s.
Linked words
through Middle English fonne ‘foolish, simple, silly’
Today it means
noun Amusement, enjoyment or pleasure.
Sources
Sources: Wiktionary, “fun”. By Wiktionary contributors, CC BY-SA 4.0, via kaikki.org (dump of Oct 3 2026); text adapted and restructured. Language periods are conventional ranges, not dates for this word. License.
Etymograph / Middle English fonne / fun