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Electric fan   /ɪlˈɛktrɪk fæn/   Listen
noun
Fan  n.  
1.
An instrument used for producing artificial currents of air, by the wafting or revolving motion of a broad surface; as:
(a)
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.
(b)
(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.
(c)
An instrument for winnowing grain, by moving which the grain is tossed and agitated, and the chaff is separated and blown away.
(d)
Something in the form of a fan when spread, as a peacock's tail, a window, etc.
(e)
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."
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.
3.
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 (Zool.), 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 (Zool.), any shell of the family Pectinidae. 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.





Collaborative International Dictionary of English 0.48


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"Electric fan" Quotes from Famous Books



... with "pure buttermilk." He'll be in more difficult situations before he is done, I'm thinking. An electric fan above him that keeps the buttermilk "pure" and flies the American flag ...
— Vignettes of San Francisco • Almira Bailey
... and moistened his lips. The room seemed suddenly very hot, notwithstanding the fact that an obnoxious electric fan was sending a current of cool air down the back of ...
— The Brass Bowl • Louis Joseph Vance
... long seat, his head joggling against the dusty window, his mind sleepily recalling, round by round, a certain prize fight that had held him in Reno over the Fourth and had cost him some money and much disgust. The clicking of the car trucks directly underneath, the whirring of the electric fan over his head, the reek of tobacco smoke seemed to him to last for hours, seemed likely to go on forever. Above it all, rising stridently now and then in a disagreeable monotone, the harsh, faintly snarling voice of ...
— Rim o' the World • B. M. Bower
... admitted to quiet, padded rooms, containing everything which is necessary to separate hopeful persons from their money. In one room a number of book-makers were whiling away the hot afternoon with poker for small stakes. In another room, played upon by an electric fan, sat Mr. Lichtenstein, the proprietor. He was bent over a table on which he had assembled fifteen or twenty of the component parts of a very large picture-puzzle. He was small, plump and earnest. ...
— The Penalty • Gouverneur Morris
... discovery sitting in the draught of an electric fan. He looked up, made a mental note; and next morning he moved his office "comforter'' out to the head of one file of machines. The draught tangled the goods under the seamstresses' hands at times, but the half dozen girls within range showed a decided increase in production over the day before ...
— Increasing Efficiency In Business • Walter Dill Scott
... summer when it is hot the same electric current will start a small artificial storm (an electric fan) which keeps ...
— Ancient Man - The Beginning of Civilizations • Hendrik Willem Van Loon


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