means A large, long-tailed game bird, often brightly plumed, that roams fields and woodlands and prefers running or short bursts of flight to sustained soaring.

from Through Old French 'fesant' from Latin 'phasianus,' which came from Greek 'phasianos' — literally 'the bird of the Phasis,' a river in the ancient region of Colchis (in what is now Georgia, by the Black Sea). The Greeks believed these splendid birds came from that distant river, so the pheasant has carried a faraway address in its name for thousands of years.