fan
/fæn/ noun A1- A hand-held device consisting of concertinaed material, or slats of material, gathered together at one end, that may be opened out into the shape of a sector of a circle and waved back and forth in order to move air towards oneself and cool oneself.
- An electrical or mechanical device for moving air, used for cooling people, machinery, etc. · He didn't switch on the fan because the temperature was 15 degrees Celsius.
- The action of fanning; agitation of the air.
- Anything resembling a hand-held fan in shape, e.g., a peacock’s tail or a leaf of fan coral.
- An instrument for winnowing grain, by moving which the grain is tossed and agitated, and the chaff is separated and blown away.
- A small vane or sail, used to keep the large sails of a smock mill always in the direction of the wind.
- A group of overlapping cards exposed in various patience games.
- A section of a tree having a finite number of branches.
Plural fans
Phrasal verbs and expressions
From the library
The nervous excitement of which we speak pursued Valentine even in her sleep, or rather in that state of somnolence which succeeded her waking hours; it was then, in the silence of night, in the dim light shed from the alabaster lamp on the chimney-piece, that she saw the shadows pass and repass which hover over the bed of sickness, and fan the fever with their trembling wings.
Where _can_ I have dropped them, I wonder?” Alice guessed in a moment that it was looking for the fan and the pair of white kid gloves, and she very good-naturedly began hunting about for them, but they were nowhere to be seen—everything seemed to have changed since her swim in the pool, and the great hall, with the glass table and the little door, had vanished completely.
Run home this moment, and fetch me a pair of gloves and a fan!
But I’d better take him his fan and gloves—that is, if I can find them.” As she said this, she came upon a neat little house, on the door of which was a bright brass plate with the name “W.
Other matches
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