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Meaning & History
Ancient Greek nickname meaning "toad", literally "the brown animal". Phryne was a 4th-century BC hetaira or courtesan, famed for her beauty, whose stage name - like those of many hetairai - was based on a physical feature; she was called that either because of a dark complexion (*phrynos being cognate with brown) or because of a "snub nose" (phrynē "a kind of toad"). This stage name was borne by other hetairai also.It is also the name of the detective in Australian author Kerry Greenwood's Phryne Fisher mystery series, beginning in 1989.