Forms: α. 1 fann, (fon, Northumb. fonnæ), 4–7 fann(e, 4– fan. β. 5–7 vanne, 7– van. [OE. fann, str. fem., ad. L. vannus, fem., = sense 1 a. Cf. F. van.]
1. An instrument for winnowing grain.
a. A basket of special form (also, earlier, a sort of wooden shovel) used for separating the corn from the chaff by throwing it into the air. Obs. exc. Hist.
α. 800. Corpus Gloss., Uanna, fon.
c. 950. Lindisfarne Gospels, Luke iii. 17. His fonnæ vel windȝefonnæ.
c. 1000. Anglo-Saxon Gospel, Luke iii. 17. His fann ys on his handa.
a. 1100. Gerefa, in Anglia, IX. 264. Fauna, trogas, æscena.
c. 1386. Chaucer, Miller’s T., 129.
| And strouted as a ffanne large and brode | |
| fful streight and euene lay his ioly shode. |
c. 1440. Promp. Parv., 148. Fann to clense wythe corne, vannus.
1573. Tusser, Husb. (1878), 35. Flaile, strawforke and rake, with a fan that is strong.
1616. Surfl. & Markh., Country Farme, 86. When the Pigeons haue pickt vp the Corne scattered from the Fanne, or striked abroad by the Flaile, they may haue their water neere and easie for manie to come by together, either to drinke or bathe themselues in.
1654. Trapp, Comm. Ps. xiii. 8. Chaff will get to the top of the Fan; when good Corn … liethe at the bottom of the heap.
1718. Pope, Iliad, V. 612.
| As when, on Ceres’ sacred floor, the swain | |
| Spreads the wide fan to clear the golden grain. |
1875. Jowett, Plato (ed. 2), III. 635, Timaeus. The elements when moved were divided like the grain shaken and winnowed by fans.
1889. Elvin, Dict. Heraldry, p. xlix. Winnowing-basket … Fan or Vane.
β. c. 1450. Lat. & Eng. Voc., in Wr.-Wülcker, 570. Capisterium, a vanne [or a Seve].
1601. Holland, Pliny, II. 100. Rushes so big, that they will serue to make sieues, rangers, and vans.
1610. Healey, Vives’ Comm. St. Aug. Citie of God (1620), 239. There was also the Vanne, which is otherwise called the creele.
1725. Pope, Odyss., XI. 158.
| With strange amaze | |
| A shepherd meeting thee, the Oar surveys, | |
| And names a Van. |
1791. Cowper, Odyss., XI. 157.
| When thou shalt meet a traveller, who shall name | |
| The oar on thy broad shoulder borne, a van. |
b. Any kind of contrivance to blow away the chaff; a fanner; a fanning or winnowing-machine.
c. 1669. Worlidge, Syst. Agric. (1681), 325. A Fan is an instrument that by its motion artificially causeth Wind; useful in the Winnowing of Corn.
1677. Plot, Oxfordsh., 259 They … do it … with the fan at home, 1 mean the leaved fan; for the knee fan … [is] not in use amongst them … But the wheel fan saves a mans labor.
1707. Mortimer, Husb., viii. 118. For the Cleansing of Corn, that in most places the worst way is commonly made use of; which is either a Wicker-fan, or a Fan with Sails.
1768. Specif of Meikle & Mackell’s Patent, No. 896. A fan to blow out the gross chaff [in a grain dressing machine].
1836. Hebert, Engineer’s Encycl., I. 489. Fan.… A rotative blowing machine, consisting of vanes turning upon an axis, used for winnowing corn.
c. transf. and fig. Sometimes with allusion to Matt. iii. 12.
1559. T. Bryce, in Farr, S. P. Eliz. (1845), I. 172.
| When William Nicoll in Harforwest | |
| Was tryed with their fiery fan. |
1570–6. Lambarde, A Perambulation of Kent (1826), 70. The fire and fan of judgment and discretion.
1606. Shaks., Tr. & Cr., I. iii. 27.
| But in the Winde and Tempest of her frowne, | |
| Distinction with a lowd and powrefull fan, | |
| Puffing at all, winnowes the light away; | |
| And what hath masse, or matter by it selfe, | |
| Lies rich in Vertue, and vnmingled. |
1612. T. Taylor, Comm. Titus i. 15. He hath sought to purge his floore by sundry fannes of afflictions, by plague and pestilence, famine and dearth.
1667. Milton, P. L., V. 269.
| He … with quick Fann | |
| Winnows the buxom Air. |
† d. Applied to things resembling a winnowing fan (sense 1 a) in shape (see quots.). Obs.
In the Chaucer passage the word is commonly supposed to mean ‘quintain.’
c. 1386. Chaucer, Manciple’s Tale, Prol., 42.
| A! taketh heede, sires, of this lusty man! | |
| Now sweete sire, wol ye Iusten atte ffan? |
a. 1500[?]. trans. Vegetius, in Promp. Parv., 148. Olde werriours were wont to iuste with fannes, and pley with the pil, or the pale. Ibid. [Young soldiers ought to have] a shelde made of twigges sumwhat rounde, in maner of a gredryn, the whiche is cleped a fanne.
e. (See quot.; = FANFUL). dial.
1863. Morton, Cycl. Agric., Gloss., Fan (Camb.) of chaff, 3 heaped bushels.
† 2. An instrument for blowing a fire; lit. and fig.
1530. Palsgr., 218/2. Fanne to blowe with, estovillon.
1594. Hooker, Eccl. Pol., Pref., 10. The contradiction of others is a fanne to inflame that love.
3. An instrument for agitating the air, to cool the face, etc. with an artificial breeze. a. A fan to be held in the hand.
A common kind, and the one always referred to in transferred senses relating to shape, is constructed so as to admit of being folded up in small compass, its form when unfolded being that of a sector of a circle.
1555. Eden, Decades (Arb.), 190. A fanne of golde, and an Idole of one of his domesticall goddes of curious woorkemanshyppe.
1599. B. Jonson, Cynthia’s Rev., III. ii. For the least feather in her bounteous fan.
1641. ‘Smectymnuus,’ Answ., § 2 (1653), 5. Their daughters walking in Cheapeside with their fannes and farthingales.
1727. Swift, Gulliver, II. v. 139. Sometimes I would put up my Sail, and then my Business was only to steer, while the Ladies gave me a Gale with their Fans.
1760–72. trans. Juan & Ulloa’s Voy. (ed. 3), I. 32. Fans … made of a very thin kind of palm in the form of a crescent, having a stick of the same wood in the middle.
1837. Dickens, Pickw., ii. The widow dropped her fan.
1841–71. T. R. Jones, Anim. Kingd. (ed. 4), 307. The posterior pair [of wings] are folded up lengthways like a fan.
1850. Layard, Nineveh xiii. 325. Two eunuchs holding fans over the head of the monarch.
† b. -PUNKAH. Obs.
1696. trans. Du Mont’s Voy. Levant, 133. Fans, which are very much in fashion among Persons of Quality in Italy, I mean certain Machines hung at the Ceiling…. There is also a small silken cord fasten’d to it, and drawn thro’ a Hole into the Anti-Chamber, where a Servant is placed to keep the Machine playing by pulling the Cord. These Fans are usually hung over a Couch, or Bed of Repose, where a Man may lie and enjoy the Pleasure of Fanning, as long as he pleases.
4. poet. A wing. [? After It. vanni pl.]
α. 1640. Fuller, Joseph’s Party-coloured Coat, David’s Heavy Punishment, xxxii. (1867), 238.
| The shamefaced bird, with one wing fain to fly, | |
| Did hold their other fan before their eye. |
1700. Dryden, Fables, The Cock and the Fox, 769.
| Then stretch’d his feather’d Fans with all his might, | |
| And to the neighb’ring Maple wing’d his flight. |
1818. Keats, Endym., I. 762.
| His eyelids | |
| Widened a little, as when Zephyr bids | |
| A little breeze to creep between the fans | |
| Of careless butterflies. |
β. 1667. Milton, P. L., II. 927.
| At last his Sail-broad Vannes | |
| He spreads for flight. |
1791. E. Darwin, Bot. Gard., I. 163.
| You [Sylphs] form with chemic hands the airy surge, | |
| Mix with broad vans, with shadowy tridents urge. |
1816. Wokdsw., Poems of Sentiment and Reflection, xxv. Where Ravens spread their plumy vans, at ease!
1830. Tennyson, Love and Death, 8. Love wept and spread his sheeny vans for flight.
5. Anything spread out in the shape of a fan (sense 3 a); e.g., a leaf, the tail of a bird, the delta at the mouth of a river, fan-like tracery in a roof.
1599. T. M[oufet], Silkwormes, 3.
| These robes our parents first were deckt withal, | |
| Then fig tree fannes vppon their shame they wore: | |
| Next, skinnes of beasts, (to shew their beastly fall) | |
| Then, hairy cloathes, and wooll from Baa-lambs tore. |
1692. R. L’Estrange, Fables, ccxxxiv. 204. The Peacock spreads his Tail, and Challenges the Other, to shew him such a Fan of Feathers.
1807. Southey, Espriella’s Lett. (1808), I. 142. On the upper story live peacocks are spreading their fans.
1815. Rickman, in J. Smith’s The Panorama of Science and Art, I. 163. In a few instances, the squares were filled with fans, &c. of small tracery.
1856. Miss Mulock, J. Halifax, i. 6. The large brown fan of a horse-chestnut leaf.
1871. Tyndall, Fragm. Sc. (1879), I. vi. 211. A fan of beams, issuing from the hidden sun, was spread out over the southern heavens.
1879. Sir G. Scott, Lect. Archit., II. 218. The interstices between the fans are filled up in various ways; either by circles of somewhat similar design, which sometimes drop down in little pendent fans, like stalactites from the roof of a cavern; or with a number of circles fitted together; or by continuing the diagonal ribs to their intersection with the ridges, and filling in the triangular spaces with tracery.
1883. Daily News, 25 June, 2/1. I … detect a strain of the tendon in the fan of the off fore-heel.
1884. Dawson, Rough Notes of a Naturalist’s Visit to Egypt, in The Leisure Hour, XXXIII. Aug., 492/1. At present these torrents in the Bab el Molook only suffice to drift materials to the mouth of the gorge, but at some previous time—probably when the valley was steeper and less deeply excavated, when for a limited time there was an unusual torrential force, and when the waters flowing from it poured either into a broader Nile or into the sea itself—a great mass of similar matter was projected from it in a fan or delta, known as Jebel Assart, and which is about a mile in length and a quarter of a mile broad, while its highest part is about twenty-five feet above the alluvial plain.
β. 1821. Joanna Baillie, Met. Leg., Columbus, xvi.
| As the deep vans [of the palm leaf] fall and rise, | |
| Changes its richly verdant dies. |
b. = Fan-light.
1844. Alb. Smith, Adv. Mr. Ledbury, xxviii. (1886), 85. There was a light over the fan of the door.
c. Organ-building (see quot.).
1880. Hopkins, in Grove, Dict. Mus., II. 598, s.v. Organ, A long arm of iron, called a fan, extending horizontally in front of the vertical draw-rods.
6. A rotating apparatus (analogous to the later forms of winnowing fan: see 1 b) usually consisting of an axle or spindle, with arms bearing flat or curved blades: a. for producing a current of air as a means of ventilation, etc.
1835. Ure, Philos. Manuf., 380. The effect of one of Fairbairn and Lillie’s four-guinea fans upon a large factory is truly admirable.
1854. Ronalds & Richardson, Chem. Technol. (ed. 2), I. 314. If it were used to raise steam for driving a fan, by which heated and compressed air could be supplied to the ash-pit.
1869. E. A. Parkes, A Manual of Practical Hygiene (ed. 3), 131. At the Hospital Lariboisiè in Paris, a powerful fan is used to drive air into some of the wards, at a considerable expense.
1881. Raymond, Mining Gloss., Fan. A revolving machine, to blow air into a mine (pressure-fan, blower), or to draw it out (suction-fan).
b. for regulating the throttle-valve of a steam-engine. Also called fan-governor.
1887. Ewing, in Encycl. Brit. (ed. 9), XXII. 509, ‘Steam-Engine.’ The Allen governor … has a fan directly geared to the engine.
c. in a windmill (see quot.).
1825. J. Nicholson, Operat. Mechanic, Gloss. 776. Fan. Small vanes or sails to receive the impulse of the wind, and, by a connexion with machinery, to keep the large sails of a smock wind-mill always in the direction of the wind.
1874. in Knight, Dict. Mech.
d. (see quot.); also fan-fly.
1825. J. Nicholson, Operat. Mechanic, Gloss. 776. Fan.… An instrument to winnow corn; also to decrease speed by its action on the air.
e. Soap-manuf. (see quot.).
1885. Carpenter, Manuf Soap, vi. 158. An important adjunct to a soap-copper … for preventing the contents from boiling over … is called a fan, and … it consists essentially of a rotating paddle, whose blades just touch the top of the boiling mass.
7. a. The flukes or lobes of the whale’s tail. b. Naut. The screw used in propelling vessels; a single blade of the same. Also attrib. in two-fan. c. Angling. A similar apparatus on spinning-bait.
1785. Specif. of Bramah’s Patent, No. 1478, Fig. 25. A is a wheel … made with fans on its extremity like the water wheel of a mill … The fans will then act as oars and force the ship forward.
1859. J. S. Mansfield, in Merc. Marine Mag. (1860), VII. 15. Her engines … worked a two-fan screw. Ibid., 17. The Prince was supplied with a three-bladed fan.
1867. F. Francis, Angling, iv. (1880), 120. The other end of the brass [of the spinning bait] has fixed on it a pair of wings or fans, on the Archimedean screw principle.
† 8. Confused with FANE sb.1, VANE. a. A pennon. b. A weathercock. Obs.
c. 1375. Barbour, Troy-bk., I. 229.
| With fannys ande banneres wpone hight | |
| Aboue standande, of golde so bright. |
c. 1475. Voc., in Wr.-Wülcker, 805. Hic cherucus, a fanne [cf. Promp. Parv., 148. Fane of a stepylle, cherucus].
1650. Ward, Discolliminium, 48. A red high-crown’d Cap on his head, with a mans face over each eare, and a Vane or weather-cock on the top of it.
† 9. The motion of the air caused by or as by a fan. Obs. [Properly a distinct word: f. the vb.]
1606. Shaks., Tr. & Cr., V. iii. 41.
| The captiue Grecian fals | |
| Euen in the fanne and winde of your faire Sword. |
10. attrib. and Comb. a. simple attributive (sense 3 a), as fan-exercise, -form, -stick (whence fanstick-maker), -wind; fan-like, -wise adj. and adv.; fan-fashion adv.; (sense 6) as fan-blast, -blower, -house, -shaft, -ventilator, -wheel. b. attributive in the sense of resembling a fan in shape, as fan-coral, -crest, -hoop, -jet, -shell. c. objective, as fan-bearer, -maker, -painter, -painting, -tearer; fan-beating adj. d. parasynthetic and similative, as fan-crested, -leaved, -nerved, -pleated, -shaped, -veined adjs.
a. 1875. Encycl. Brit., III. 552, ‘Bellows.’ *Fan-blast machines are frequently employed, especially to urge the fire of steam boilers.
1874. Knight, Dict. Mech., *Fan-blower. A blower in which a series of vanes fixed on a rotating shaft creates a blast of air for forge purposes, or a current for draft or ventilation.
1867. Ouida, C. Castlemaine (1879), 2. Practising the *Fan exercise.
1853. Kane, Grinnell Exp., xxxv. (1856), 319–20. This expanded, *fan-fashion, as it rose, and was lost by its penciled radiations blending with the illuminated sky.
1871. Figure Training, 110. The toes … spread widely, and in *fan form, out.
1888. Pall Mall G., 26 Jan., 7/1. The *fanhouse was partly destroyed.
1816. Southey, The Poet’s Pilgrimage to Waterloo, IV. 46.
| Then rose a different land, where loftiest trees | |
| High o’er the grove their *fan-like foliage rear. |
1836. R. B. Todd, The Cyclopædia of Anatomy and Physiology, I. 688/1. The arms … are separated one from the other, fan-like.
1875. Ure, Dict. Arts, III. 1069. The fan is driven by a small … engine K, connected to a crank on the end of the *fan-shaft B.
1686. Lond. Gaz., No. 2149/4. Two *Fan-sticks, Carved curiously with hollow work.
1761. Gentl. Mag., XXXI. 498. The ladies began to count their fan sticks.
1723. Lond. Gaz., No. 6170/9. Edward Bunn … *Fan-Stick-maker.
1874. Knight, Dict. Mech., *Fan-ventilator. The oldest known form of this device is the corps of worker bees arranged on each side of the entrance hole, a little within the hive, engaged in incessantly vibrating their wings so as to cause a circulation of air into, through, and out of the hive.
1842. Brande, Dict. Sc. Lit. & Art, Fan.… So regulated as to proportion their descent through the stream of air to the force of the current created by the *fan wheel.
1578. J. Banister, The Historie of Man, VII. 94. To cary vnto the lunges the altered ayre, which are as a *fanwynde to the hart, to coole the same.
1882. T. Foster, in Proctor, Nature Studies, 55. Feathers radiating *fanwise from each of the fore-limbs. Ibid., 56. The fan-wise and rounded arrangement of the wing-feathers.
b. 1806. Gazetteer Scot. (ed. 2), 178. Great quantities of sponge and *fan-coral are annually thrown ashore.
1881. Rep. Geol. Expl. N. Zealand, 67. This fan-coral bed.
1883. J. W. Mollett, Dict. Art & Archæol., *Fan-crest. Her., an early form of decoration for the knightly helm.
1756. Cowper, in Connoisseur, cxxxiv. The mace-bearer cleared the way for Mrs. Mayoress, who came sideling after him in an enormous *fan-hoop, of a pattern which had never been seen before in those parts.
1884. Knight, Dict. Mech., 326/2. *Fan Jet. A form of nozzle for watering-pots and engines having a fan or spoon shaped lip which deflects the stream of water into a wide and thin expanding film.
c. 1877. A. B. Edwards, Up Nile, viii. 205. The King, attended by his *fan-bearers, returns in state, and the priests burn incense before him.
1596. Drayton, Mortimeriados, T j.
| No Apish *fan-bearing Hermophradite, | |
| Coch-carried midwyfe, weake, effeminate, | |
| Quilted and ruft, which manhood euer hate. |
1710. Lond. Gaz., No. 4781/3. Mr. Lewis Fortin, *Fanmaker.
1858. Simmonds, Dict. Trade, Fan-maker, a manufacturer of ladies’ fans. Fan and Sky-light Maker, a manufacturer of semi-circular windows and glazed-roofs.
1723. Lond. Gaz., No. 6188/10. John Gibbons … *Fan-Painter.
1879. Encycl. Brit. (ed. 9), IX. 28. Rosalba Carriera was … a fan painter of celebrity in the 17th century. Ibid., Cano de Arevalo … devoted himself to *fan painting.
1695. Cibber, Love’s Last Shift, III. An eternal *Fan-tearer, and a constant Persecutor of Womankind.
d. 1799. Barton, Fragm. Nat. Hist. Pennsylv., 2. Mergus cucullatus *Fan-crested-Duck.
1834. Caunter, Oriental Annual, v. 85. The *fan-leaved palm.
1884. Syd. Soc. Lex., *Fan-nerved, having the nerves radiating like a fan from one point as in some leaves and insects’ wings.
1892. Pall Mall G., 19 May, 1/3. *Fan-pleated bows of lace.
1776. Withering, Brit. Plants (1796), IV. 337. Grows exactly like the Boletus versicolor, and from its coloured zones may readily be taken for it. *Fan-shaped; scarcely 1/2 an inch diameter.
1807. Britton, Architect. Antiq., I. (King’s Coll. Chapel), 8. They appear in the fan-shaped tracery, or groining of the inner surface.
1850. Lyell, 2nd Visit U. S., II. 134. The swamp palmetto (Chamærops adansonia) raises its fan-shaped leaves, ten feet high, although without any main trunk.
1866. Treas. Bot., s.v. *Fan-veined. When the veins or ribs are disposed like those of a fan.
11. Special comb.: fan-banner, a fan-shaped banner; fan-bonnet, a bonnet so called from its shape; fan-fly = FAN sb. 6 d; fan-forge (see quot.); fan-frame (see quot.); fan-governor (see FAN sb. 6 b); fan-groining, Arch. = fan-tracery; fan-mount [ = Fr. monture d’éventail], the frame upon which a fan is mounted; fan-palm, a name applied to palms having fan-shaped leaves; fan-plant, the palmetto: fan-print, a design printed upon a fan; fan-shade, a shade for a lamp, etc., in form like a circular fan; fan-steam-engine (see quot.); fan-tracery, Arch. (see quot. 1842); fan-training, Horticulture, a method of training fruit trees on a trellis or wall, in the form of a fan; so fan-trained a.; fan-tree, (a) = fan-palm; (b) a tree spread out in the form of a fan (in quot. attrib.); fan-vaulting = fan-tracery; fan-window (see quot.); fan-work = fan-tracery. Also FAN-LIGHT, FAN-TAIL.
1835. Willis, Pencillings (1836), I. xviii. 128. The high papal chair, with the immense *fan-banners of peacocks’ feathers held aloft.
1774. Westm. Mag., II. 484. Black *Fan Bonnets.
1868. Denison, Clocks & Watches (ed. 5), 28. The simplest of all the methods of regulating the velocity of the train … is the *fan-fly.
1884. Knight, Dict. Mech., 326/2. *Fan-forge. A transportable form of forge and fan.
1884. Encycl. Brit. (ed. 9), XVII. 834. The *fan-frame [of an organ] is a set of backfalls having one set of ends close together, usually corresponding to the keys; the other ends are spread widely apart.
1881. C. A. Edwards, Organs, 71. The communication between the keys and the pallets is usually effected by … the fan-frame movement.
1879. Sir G. G. Scott, Lect. Archit., II. 222. Not only is *fan groining itself a purely English invention, but the special system of this roof has, so far as I know, only English prototypes.
1753. Scots Mag., May, 215/1. So inconsiderable an implement as a *fan-mount.
1865. Browning, Poems, The Laboratory I. 22.
| To carry pure death in an earring, a casket, | |
| A signet, a fan-mount, a filigree basket! |
1820. T. Green, Universal Herbal, I. 284/2. Chamærops Humilis. Dwarf *Fan Palm.
1839. Mary Howitt, Humming-bird, 12. They flit about … through the fan palm tree.
1840. F. D. Bennett, Whaling Voy., II. 345. Corypha umbraculifera.—Fan Palm…. It resembles the common Fan Palm, or Palmyra, of the East Indies, and attains the height of thirty-five feet.
1885. Lady Brassey, The Trades, 177. It is sometimes called the fan-palm, because travellers use the leaves as fans; the horse-palm, because they are used for driving off flies; the thatch-palm, and the hat-palm, the young shoots making excellent sombreros or panamas.
1845. Mrs. Houstoun, Texas and the Gulf of Mexico, II. 151. The monotonous brown of the earth’s covering was, however, varied by frequent tufts of the *fan-plant; as it is here called. This graceful plant shoots up its broad fan-like leaves, of the most vivid green, and its peculiar shape and hue are calculated to give an appearance of tropical vegetation to the scenery.
1860. Fairholt, Costume (ed. 2), s.v. Fan.… I have some *fan-prints of various similar subjects: one dated 1781 contains in the centre a well-executed engraving of a muscial party, and on each side the words and music of a canon and three French and Venetian canzonets.
1867. J. Hogg, Microsc., I. iii. 160. One of the old-fashioned *fan-shades will be found useful.
1874. Knight, Dict. Mech., *Fan-Steam-engine. The action of this steam is the inverse of that of the fan. The outer annular casing receives steam from the boiler and discharges from its inner surface in tangential jets upon the scoop-shaped blades which are attached to a rotating shaft.
1815. Rickman, in J. Smith’s The Panorama of Science and Art, I. 164. We now come to a new and most delicate description of roof, that of *fan-tracery, of which probably the earliest, and certainly one of the most elegant is that of the cloisters of Gloucester.
1842. Bloxham, Gothic Architecture, 196. A very rich and peculiar description of vaulting is one composed of pendant semi-cones covered with foliated panel-work, called fan-tracery.
1871. Robinson, Loudon’s Horticulturist, viii. 325. *Fan-training is chiefly adapted for trees trained against walls.
1880. S. Wood, Tree Pruner, 5. A well-developed *fan-trained Peach-tree.
1835. Browning, Paracelsus, V. 138. Light strippings from the fan-trees.
1846. Baxter, Libr. Pract. Agric. (ed. 4), II. 379. The fruit-tree method [of pruning] in which the plant is spread out in the fan-tree manner.
1835. R. Willis, Archit. Mid. Ages, 83. This appears to be the first step towards *fan vaulting.
1874. Knight, Dict. Mech., *Fan-window. (Architecture.) A semicircular window with radial sash.
1801. Beauties Eng. & Wales, I. 48. The vast arched roof, unsustained by a single pillar, with its voluminous stones, displaying all the elegance of *fan work.
1833. W. Barnes, Gent. Mag. Lib. Topog., III. (1893), 314. Four fan-work groins spring from bosses in the four corners of the room, each comprehending a quarter of a circle, and having a radius at the top equal to half the width of the wall.
