The Collaborative International Dictionary
Fan \Fan\ (f[a^]n), n. [AS. fann, fr. L. vannus fan, van for winnowing grain; cf. F. van. Cf. Van a winnowing machine, Winnow.]
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An instrument used for producing artificial currents of air, by the wafting or revolving motion of a broad surface; as:
An instrument for cooling the person, made of feathers, paper, silk, etc., and often mounted on sticks all turning about the same pivot, so as when opened to radiate from the center and assume the figure of a section of a circle.
(Mach.) Any revolving vane or vanes used for producing currents of air, in winnowing grain, blowing a fire, ventilation, etc., or for checking rapid motion by the resistance of the air; a fan blower; a fan wheel.
An instrument for winnowing grain, by moving which the grain is tossed and agitated, and the chaff is separated and blown away.
Something in the form of a fan when spread, as a peacock's tail, a window, etc.
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A small vane or sail, used to keep the large sails of a smock windmill always in the direction of the wind.
Clean provender, which hath been winnowed with the shovel and with the fan.
--Is. xxx. 24.
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.
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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 (Zo["o]l.), 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 (Zo["o]l.), any shell of the family Pectinid[ae]. 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).
electric fan. a fan having revolving blades for propelling air, powered by an electric motor.
WordNet
n. a fan run by an electric motor [syn: blower]
Usage examples of "electric fan".
He knew how to make the electric fan drive Richard's little tin car, he could build traps for animals of all kinds including humans, he had invented a dive-proof kite and a written code that looked like nothing but slants and uprights.
A small electric fan, set on the kitchen floor, churned the hot air with less cooling effect than might be produced by a wooden spoon stirring the contents of a bubbling soup pot.
He still got by with the cheap electric fan instead of air conditioning.
He had put the tea cosy over his one telephone and from the ceiling hung a baffler against electronic eavesdropping, a thing like an electric fan which constantly varied its pitch.
In the spacious shadowed house, completely shut up, he perceived the hum of his mother's electric fan, as she slept her siesta in the house next door.
They're always the same and they always contain a hook to hang your coat on, a miniature television set, an electric fire for winter, an electric fan for summer, an electric kettle for the rest of the year and for boiling up water for tea, a seat with a personal cushion and a selection of 'harmless girlie magazines' which, when brought forward as evidence by the prosecution, are generally referred to as 'hardcore pornography of the most debased and sordid kind'.
The wind machine was a hooded electric fan, aimed at an angle to blow and swirl the dancers' hair.
For a moment there was only the sound of their labored breathing and the buzzing of an electric fan somewhere out of sight.
Wainwright was sweating anyway, an electric fan whirring atop filepapers on his cluttered desk.
So the boatswain's mate growled, and made a leap for an old electric fan overhead.
The General peers upwards and sees, a hundred meters above them, a circle of radiant green-blue jungle quartered by the spinning swastika of a big electric fan.