Word Direct Answers

What does "fan" mean?

Fan: 2. That which produces effects analogous to those of a fan, as in exciting a flame, etc.; that which inflames, heightens, or strengthens; as, it served as a fan to the flame of his passion.

Additional senses

  1. 2.A quintain; -- from its form. [Obs.] Chaucer. Fan blower, a wheel with vanes fixed on a rotating shaft inclosed in a case or chamber, to create a blast of air (fan blast) for forge purposes, or a current for draft and ventilation; a fanner. -- Fan cricket (Zoöl.), a mole cricket. -- Fan light (Arch.), a window over a door; -- so called from the semicircular form and radiating sash bars of those windows which are set in the circular heads of arched doorways. -- Fan shell (Zoöl.), any shell of the family Pectinidæ. See Scallop, n., 1. -- Fan tracery (Arch.), the decorative tracery on the surface of fan vaulting. -- Fan vaulting (Arch.), an elaborate system of vaulting, in which the ribs diverge somewhat like the rays of a fan, as in Henry VII.'s chapel in Westminster Abbey. It is peculiar to English Gothic. -- Fan wheel, the wheel of a fan blower. -- Fan window. Same as Fan light (above).
  2. 3.To move as with a fan. The air . . . fanned with unnumbered plumes. Milton.
  3. 4.To cool and refresh, by moving the air with a fan; to blow the air on the face of with a fan.
  4. 5.To ventilate; to blow on; to affect by air put in motion. Calm as the breath which fans our eastern groves. Dryden.
  5. 6.To winnow; to separate chaff from, and drive it away by a current of air; as, to fan wheat. Jer. li.
  6. 7.5. To excite or stir up to activity, as a fan axcites a flame; to stimulate; as, this conduct fanned the excitement of the populace. Fanning machine, or Fanning mill, a machine for separating seed from chaff, etc., by a blast of air; a fanner.

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