pheasant

From Middle English fesaunt or fesant, borrowed from Old French fesan, from Latin phāsiānus, from Ancient Greek phāsianós, meaning "bird of the river Phâsis."

The Greek name simply meant the bird belonged to the Phâsis river, from which it was thought to have spread westward; it later displaced the native Old English word wōrhana entirely.

Its ousted predecessor, Old English wōrhana, was a variant of mōrhana, which survives today in the word moorhen.