sb. [f. FAN sb.1 + TAIL.]
1. A tail or lower end in the shape of a fan.
1728. Swift, On the Five Ladies at Sot’s-Hole.
| If we who wear our Wigs | |
| With Fan-Tail and with Snake, | |
| Are bubbled thus by Prigs, | |
| Z——ds, who wou’d be a Rake? |
1862. Jrnl. R. Agric. Soc., XXIII. 214. Turning the butt-end [of a sheaf] upwards, spreading out the ears, and making a sort of ‘fantail.’
2. A variety of the domestic pigeon, so called from the form of its tail. Also fantail-pigeon.
1735. J. Moore, Columbarium, 54. They [Broad-tail’d Shaker pigeons] are call’d by some Fan-Tails, and I once saw one that had six and thirty Feathers in its Tail.
1767. S. Paterson, Another Traveller! III. 148. The Hertogin van Braaf’s curious fan-tails, and the Graavin Schoonheyd’s so much admired powters are of my breed!
1840. Dickens, Barn. Rudge (1849), 2/1. Runts, fantails, tumblers, and pouters.
1859. Darwin, Orig. Spec., i. (1878), 16. The fantail has thirty or even forty tail-feathers, instead of twelve or fourteen.
1884. May Crommelin, Brown-Eyes, i. 3. The grazing deer, and the proud fantail pigeons.
3. A genus (Rhipidura) of Birds found in Australia.
1848. in Maunder, Treas. Nat. Hist.
4. Mech. A kind of joint. Cf. dove-tail.
1858. in Simmonds, Dict. Trade.
5. (See quot. 1874.)
1858. in Simmonds, Dict. Trade, Fantail, a joint; a gas burner.
1874. Knight, Dict. Mech., Fan-tail. 1. A form of gas-burner in which the burning jet has an arched form. 2. A kind of joint.
6. attrib., as fan-tail-hat, also, simply, fan-tail, a coal-heaver’s hat, a sou’wester; fan-tail gentleman, a wearer of such a hat, a coal-heaver.
1810. Sporting Mag., XXXVI. Aug., 243/1. The two fan-tail Gentlemen soon gave in, and were conveyed away for surgical assistance.
1850. P. Crook, War of Hats, 47.
| Those heavers, too, of coals, with smutted face, | |
| And fantail hats, who flit from place to place? |
1877. J. Greenwood, Dick Temple, II. vii. 220. I fancy I see you … with knee-breeches and calves and a ‘fantail,’ shouldering an inky sack.
Hence Fan-tail v. intr. Of a whale: To work its tail like a fan. Fan-tailed a., having a fantail.
1812. H. & J. Smith, Rejected Addresses, Architectural Atoms, 154.
| The dustman, bubbled flat, | |
| Thinks ’tis for him, and doffs his fan-tail’d hat. |
1851. H. Melville, Moby-Dick; or, The Whale, xxxvi. 179. Does he fan-tail a little curious, sir, before he goes down?
1868. Wood, Homes without H., xi. 211–2. A rather pretty bird the Fan-tailed Warbler (Salicaria cisticola).
