Fan /(făn)/

Fan

An instrument used for producing artificial currents of air, by the wafting or revolving motion of a broad surface (Mach.)
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.
A quintain; -- from its form. [Obs.]

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: a mole cricket.
Fan light: 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: any shell of the family Pectinidæ. See Scallop, n., 1.
Fan tracery: the decorative tracery on the surface of fan vaulting.
Fan vaulting: 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.

v. t.

imp. & p. p. Fanned; p. pr. & vb. n. Fanning

To move as with a fan.
The air . . . fanned with unnumbered plumes.
— Milton.
To cool and refresh, by moving the air with a fan; to blow the air on the face of with a fan.
To ventilate; to blow on; to affect by air put in motion.
Calm as the breath which fans our eastern groves.
— Dryden.
To winnow; to separate chaff from, and drive it away by a current of air; as, to fan wheat.
To excite or stir up to activity, as a fan excites a flame; to stimulate; as, this conduct fanned the excitement of the populace.

Fanning machine: a machine for separating seed from chaff, etc., by a blast of air; a fanner.