[f. FAN sb. or v. + -ER1.]
1. One who fans. † a. One who winnows grain with a fan. Obs.
c. 1515. Cocke Lorell’s Bote (Percy Society), 10. Repers, faners and horners.
1654. Trapp, Comm. Ps. xiii. 8. 600. Good corn … falls low at the feel of the Fanner.
b. One who fans; himself or another person) with a fan.
1888. Bow-Bells Weekly, 18 May. The present Emperor of China when he was a baby had … twenty-five fanners.
1890. Daily News, 15 Feb., 6/4. Which caused a draught almost sufficient to blow the fanner quite away.
2. =FAN sb.1 1 b. lit. and fig. Also, in later use, an appliance forming part of this.
1788. Specif. Meikle’s Patent, No. 1645. 3. Below the harp a pair of fanners may be placed so as to separate the corn from the chaff.
1799. J. Robertson, Agric. Perth, 99. Fanners for cleaning grain have been long used by the most industrious of the farmers.
1800. Farmers Mag. (Edinb.), I. 159. James Meikle who went to Holland in 1710 … brought over a winnowing machine or what is commonly called a pair of fanners.
1828. Blackw. Mag., XXIII., June, 841/2. How from the fanners of his genius would the cock-chaffers of Cockneys fly like very chaff indeed!
1853. Jrnl. R. Agric. Soc., XIV. II. 291. The grain, after leaving the mill fanners, is put through hand-fanners preparatory to measuring.
b. U. S. (see quot.).
1890. Dialect Notes (Boston, U. S.), II. 58. Fanner, an open basket dishing out from the bottom upwards…. Originally it was used to separate the chaff from the wheat.
3. (See quots.)
1874. Knight, Dict. Mech., Fanner. A blower or ventilating-fan.
1858. Simmonds, Dict. Trade, Fanner, a revolving instrument with vanes, which creates wind for winnowing the chaff from grain; a cooling apparatus.
4. A kind of hawk so called from the fanning motion of its wings. Also vanner-hawk.
1875. Parish, Sussex Gloss., Fanner. A hawk.
1885. Swainson, Prov. Names Brit. Birds, 140. Kestrel … Vanner hawk, Windfanner.
