fan

fan

1. (international standards) ISO 639-2 & ISO 639-3 language code for Fang (Bantu).

• IPA^(key): /fæn/

  • Audio (UK)

    (file)

• (æ-tensing) IPA^(key): [feən]
• Rhymes: -æn
• Homophones: faan, fanne

Handheld fans.

An electrical fan.

A ceiling fan.

From Middle English fan, from Old English fann (“a winnowing, fan”), from Latin vannus (“fan for winnowing grain”), from Proto-Indo-European *h₂weh₁- (“to blow”). Cognate with Latin ventus (“wind”), Dutch wan (“fan”), German Wanne, Swedish vanna (“a fan for winnowing”), Old English windwian (“to fan, winnow”). More at winnow.

fan (plural fans)

1. 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.
2. An electrical or mechanical device for moving air, used for cooling people, machinery, etc.
3. The action of fanning; agitation of the air.
   • 1998, Brock Thoene, Bodie Thoene, A New Frontier: Saga of the Sierras (page 181)

     "If I cannot be of service, then I certainly don't wish to impose," said McGinty, with a quick fan of breeze that indicated a sweeping bow.

4. Anything resembling a hand-held fan in shape, e.g., a peacock’s tail.
5. An instrument for winnowing grain, by moving which the grain is tossed and agitated, and the chaff is separated and blown away.
   • 1611, The Holy Bible, […] (King James Version), London: […] Robert Barker, […], OCLC 964384981, Isaiah 30:24:

     The oxen likewise and the yong asses that eare the ground, shall eate cleane prouender which hath bene winnowed with the shouell and with the fanne.

   • 1611, The Holy Bible, […] (King James Version), London: […] Robert Barker, […], OCLC 964384981, Matthew 3:12:

     Whose fanne is in his hand, and he will throughly purge his floore, and gather his wheat into the garner: but wil burne vp the chaffe with vnquenchable fire.

6. A small vane or sail, used to keep the large sails of a smock mill always in the direction of the wind.
7. (mathematics) A section of a tree having a finite number of branches

fan (third-person singular simple present fans, present participle fanning, simple past and past participle fanned)

1. (transitive) To blow air on (something) by means of a fan (hand-held, mechanical or electrical) or otherwise.

   We enjoyed standing at the edge of the cliff, being fanned by the wind.

   • 1865, Lewis Carroll, “The Pool of Tears”, in Alice's Adventures in Wonderland, London: MacMillan and Co., published 1866, page 19:

     Alice took up the fan and gloves, and, as the hall was very hot, she kept fanning herself all the time she went on talking.

2. (transitive) To slap (a behind, especially).
   • 1934, Rex Stout, Fer-de-Lance, Bantam, published 1992, →ISBN, page 148:

     Part of it was that as much as I respected filial devotion and as much as I liked Sarah Barstow, it would have been a real satisfaction to put her across my knees and pull up her skirts and giver^[sic] her a swell fanning, for not taking a look at that driver.

3. (intransitive, usually to fan out) To move or spread in multiple directions from one point, in the shape of a hand-held fan.
4. (transitive) To dispel by waving a hand-held fan.

   I attempted to fan the disagreeable odour out of the room.

5. (firearms, transitive) To perform a maneuver that involves flicking the top rear of an old-style gun.
   • 2011, Hans-Christoan Vortisch, GURPS Tactical Shooting, page 14:

     To fan a single action revolver, hold down the trigger and strike the hammer repeatedly with a free hand.

6. (metaphoric) To invigorate, like flames when fanned.
   • 1923, Arthur Symons, Love's Cruelty, page 43:

     She comes, to fan my ardour, She kills me with her kisses.

7. To winnow grain.
   • 1856, Lelièvre, François Réal Angers, Lower Canada reports:

     By the first article, these fanning mills were appointed to be sent to the proprietors of the mills of Sault-à-la puce, Petit-Pré, Beauport, Pointe de Lévy, St. Nicolas and Ste. Famille in the isle of Orleans " to have all the wheat in general of whatever quality sent to these mills passed and fanned, before converting them into flour."

8. (rail transport, transitive) To apply (the air brake) many times in rapid succession.

   Fanning the brakes results in the gradual depletion of the pressure in the cars' brake reservoirs, which can eventually cause a loss of all braking.

9. (baseball, intransitive) To strike out.
10. (baseball, transitive) To strike out (a batter).

• (to firing a revolver by holding trigger and hitting hammer) thumbing

Football/soccer fans in Argentina.

Star Trek fans in the United States.

Rolling Stones fans in Norway.

A group of Beatles fans imitating the way that the band members were crossing the street at the cover of LP Abbey Road.

Clipping of fanatic, originally in US baseball slang. Possibly influenced by fancy (“group of sport or hobby enthusiasts”), i.e. fancy boy (“fan”).

fan (plural fans or fen)

1. A person who is fond of something or someone, especially an admirer of a performer or aficionado of a sport.

   I am a big fan of libraries.

The plural fen is only used within science fiction fandom. See fen, etymology 3, for more information.

• See Thesaurus:fan

• anti-fan
• hater

• See Category:en:Fans (people), for names of different fans or members of fan subcultures.

• Douglas Harper (2001–2023), “fan”, in Online Etymology Dictionary, retrieved 1 January 2017: “1889, American English, originally of baseball enthusiasts, probably a shortening of fanatic, but it may be influenced by the fancy, a collective term for followers of a certain hobby or sport (especially boxing)”.

• AFN, ANF, FNA, NAF, NFA

• IPA^(key): [fã˦ã˨]

fan

1. egg

fan

1. direction, side

• 2007. The UCLA Phonetics Lab Archive. Los Angeles, CA: UCLA Department of Linguistics.
• Richard Nci Diarra, Lexique bambara-français-anglais, December 13, 2010

• Rhymes: -an

fan

1. third-person plural present indicative form of fer

• IPA^(key): /βan/

fan

1. Alternative form of ban

• Gómez Aldana D. F., Análisis morfológico del Vocabulario 158 de la Biblioteca Nacional de Colombia. Grupo de Investigación Muysccubun. 2013.
• Quesada Pacheco, Miguel Ángel. 1991. El vocabulario mosco de 1612. En estudios de Lingüística Chibcha. Programa de investigación del departamento de lingüística de la Universidad de Costa Rica. Serie Anual Tomo X San José (Costa Rica). Universidad de Costa Rica.

fan

1. church (building)

   Ka mochen fiti fan? ― Do you want to attend church?

2. time (instance or occurrence)
   • 2010, Ewe Kapasen God, United Bible Societies, →ISBN, Matthew 26:34, page 55:

     Jesus a apasa ngeni Peter, "Upwe apasa ngonuk pwe non ei chok pwinin me mwen ewe chukȯ epwe kökkö, fan unungat kopwe apasa pwe kose sinei ei."

     Jesus said to Peter, "I tell you that in this night before the chicken calls, three times you will say that you don't know me."

fan

1. under

(This etymology is missing or incomplete. Please add to it, or discuss it at the Etymology scriptorium.)

fan (Sette Comuni)

1. on

   au fan tiss ― on the table (literally, “up on table”)

2. in

   übar fan Ròan ― in Canove (literally, “over in Canove”)

Often used in conjunction with adverbs, such as au (“up”), übar (“over”), abe (“down”).

• “fan” in Martalar, Umberto Martello; Bellotto, Alfonso (1974) Dizionario della lingua Cimbra dei Sette Communi vicentini, 1st edition, Roana, Italy: Instituto di Cultura Cimbra A. Dal Pozzo

Borrowed from English fan.

• (Belgium) IPA^(key): /fɑn/
• (Netherlands) IPA^(key): /fɛn/

• Audio

  (file)

fan m (plural fans, diminutive fannetje n)

1. fan (admirer)

• aanhanger
• bewonderaar
• supporter

From English fan.

• IPA^(key): /ˈfɑn/, [ˈfɑn]
• IPA^(key): /ˈfæn/, [ˈfæn]
• Rhymes: -ɑn
• Syllabification^(key): fan

fan

1. fan, admirer, aficionado

• fani

• IPA^(key): /fan/

Borrowed from English fan, 1920s.

fan m or f by sense (plural fans)

1. fan (admirer, supporter)

Borrowed from English fan.

fan f (plural fans)

1. (Canada) fan (ventilator)

• “fan”, in Trésor de la langue française informatisé [Digitized Treasury of the French Language], 2012.

From Latin famēs.

fan f

1. hunger

• famâ

fan

1. third-person plural present indicative of facer

fan

1. Romanization of 𐍆𐌰𐌽

• IPA^(key): [ˈfɒn]
• Hyphenation: fan

From Proto-Finno-Ugric *puna (“hair”).[1] Possibly a doublet of pina.[2]

fan (plural fanok)

1. (obsolete) pubis

   Synonyms: (the region) szeméremtájék, (the bone) szeméremcsont, (mons pubis) szeméremdomb

2. (obsolete) pubic hair

   Synonyms: szeméremszőrzet, fanszőrzet

Today it is used only in compounds.

From English fan.

fan (plural fanok)

1. (neologism, colloquial) fan (a person who is fond of something or someone, especially an admirer of a performer or aficionado of a sport)

   Synonym: rajongó

• (pubis): fan in Czuczor, Gergely and János Fogarasi: A magyar nyelv szótára (’A Dictionary of the Hungarian Language’). Pest: Emich Gusztáv Magyar Akadémiai Nyomdász, 1862–1874.
• (pubis): fan at A Pallas nagy lexikona, Pallas Irodalmi és Nyomdai Rt., Budapest, 1897
• (pubis): László Országh, Magyar–angol szótár (“Hungarian–English Dictionary”), Akadémiai Kiadó, Budapest, 1977

From English fan (“a person who is fond of something or someone”), clipping of fanatic.

• IPA^(key): [ˈfɛn]
• Hyphenation: fan

fan (first-person possessive fanku, second-person possessive fanmu, third-person possessive fannya)

1. fan: a person who is fond of something or someone.

   Synonyms: pengagum, penggemar

• “fan” in Kamus Besar Bahasa Indonesia, Jakarta: Language Development and Fostering Agency — Ministry of Education, Culture, Research, and Technology of the Republic Indonesia, 2016.

From Middle Irish fanaid, from Old Irish anaid (“to stay, remain, abide”).

• IPA^(key): /fˠanˠ/

fan (present analytic fanann, future analytic fanfaidh, verbal noun fanacht, past participle fanta)

1. to wait
2. to stay

From Latin fāmes.

fan

1. hunger

Borrowed from English fan.

• IPA^(key): /ˈfan/, /ˈfɛn/[1]
• Rhymes: -an, -ɛn
• Hyphenation: fàn

fan m or f by sense (plural fans)

1. fan (admirer or follower)

fan

1. Rōmaji transcription of ファン

fàn+

1. hear
2. understand
3. feel

fan

1. Nonstandard spelling of fān.
2. Nonstandard spelling of fán.
3. Nonstandard spelling of fǎn.
4. Nonstandard spelling of fàn.

• English transcriptions of Mandarin speech often fail to distinguish between the critical tonal differences employed in the Mandarin language, using words such as this one without the appropriate indication of tone.

From Old English fann, from Latin vannus. Forms in v- are due to a combination of Southern Middle English voicing of initial fricatives and influence from the ultimate Latin etymon.

• fanne, ffanne, vanne

• IPA^(key): /fan/, /van/

fan (plural fannes)

1. A mechanism or device for removing chaff from grain (i.e. winnowing).
2. A training or practice shield manufactured out of twigs or wickerwork.
3. (rare) A fan; a device for blowing air as to cool.

• English: fan, van
• Scots: fan

• “fan(ne, n.”, in MED Online, Ann Arbor, Mich.: University of Michigan, 2007, retrieved 2018-12-31.

fan

1. Alternative form of fannen

Borrowed from English fan, where it was a clipping of fanatic.

• IPA^(key): /fæn/

fan m (definite singular fanen, indefinite plural fans, definite plural fanane)

1. (countable) a fan (person who is fond of someone or something)

fan m

1. (swear word, in juxtapositions) Alternative form of faen

   Han er ein feig fan.

   He's a wimpy fucker.

• “fan” in The Nynorsk Dictionary.

• Audio

  (file)

fan

1. third-person plural present indicative of faire

From Proto-Germanic *fanē.

fan

1. off, from

• Middle Dutch: van
  • Dutch: van
    • Afrikaans: van
    • Berbice Creole Dutch: fan
    • Javindo: fan
    • Jersey Dutch: vān, fān, f'n
    • Negerhollands: van, fan, fa
      • → Virgin Islands Creole: fam
    • Skepi Creole Dutch: fan
  • Limburgish: ven

• “fan”, in Oudnederlands Woordenboek, 2012

From Proto-West Germanic *fą̄han.

fān

1. to catch

This verb needs an inflection-table template.

• anafān
• antfān
• bifān

• Middle Dutch: vâen
  • Dutch: vangen
    • Afrikaans: vang
    • Berbice Creole Dutch: fanggi
    • Negerhollands: vang, faṅ
    • Skepi Creole Dutch: fank
    • → Aukan: fanga
    • → Sranan Tongo: fanga
      • → Caribbean Javanese: fangah, mangah
  • Limburgish: vange

• “fān”, in Oudnederlands Woordenboek, 2012

• fana, fon

From Proto-Germanic *afanē, *fanē, whence also Old High German fon.

• IPA^(key): /fɑn/

fan

1. from

• Middle Low German: van, von
  • Dutch Low Saxon: van
  • German Low German: van, von, vun

Borrowed from English fan.

• IPA^(key): /fan/

• Audio

  (file)

• Rhymes: -an
• Syllabification: fan

fan m pers (feminine fanka)

1. fan (“admirer”)

   Synonyms: entuzjasta, wielbiciel, miłośnik, zapaleniec

• fan in Wielki słownik języka polskiego, Instytut Języka Polskiego PAN
• fan in Polish dictionaries at PWN

fan

1. betel leaf

Unadapted borrowing from English fan or French fan.

fan m (plural fani)

1. fan (admirer, supporter)