[f. FAN v. + -ING1.] The action of the vb. FAN.
1. The action of fanning or winnowing (corn).
1577. B. Googe, Heresbach’s Husb., I. (1586), 43. The … fannyng and wynnowing in Sommer.
a. 1679. T. Goodwin, Wks., V. II. 144. Others take this fanning (Luke iii. 16, 17) for that discovery which shall be made at the day of judgment.
1879. Farrar, St. Paul, II. vii. I. 123. ‘All the fanning in the world will not make you [a cornfield] so remunerative as commerce,’ said Rabh.
b. concr. The siftings of tea.
1870. Daily News, 16 Nov. Common fannings mixed with broken stalks.
2. The action of moving the air with or as with a fan; an instance of this.
1528. Paynell, Salerne’s Regim., T iv. The fier, without fannynge of the aier, is schoked and quenched.
1696. trans. Du Mont’s Voy. Levant, 133. Bed of Repose, where a Man may lie and enjoy the Pleasure of Fanning as long as he pleases.
1715. Desaguliers, Fires Impr., 41. Fanning, blowing with Bellows, or strongly with our Mouths, makes that Air feel cold or cool, which is otherwise warm.
1852. D. M. Moir, Hymn to the Night Wind, Poet. Wks. II. 381.
| From ocean, journeying with an eagle speed, | |
| Come the delightful fannings of thy wing! |
3. The action of blowing gently as with a fan; an instance of this; a breeze.
1712. Budgell, The Spectator, No. 425, 8 July, ¶ 1. The Fanning of the Wind rustling on the Leaves.
1764. J. Grainger, The Sugar Cane, 562. The first glad fannings of the breeze.
1818. Keats, Endym., II. 664.
| Exhal’d asphodel, | |
| And rose, with spicy fannings interbreath’d, | |
| Came swelling forth where little caves were wreathed. |
4. = Fan-tracery (see FAN sb.1 11).
1851. Ruskin, Stones Ven., I. xxlx. § 4. And I would rather, myself, have a plain ridged Gothic vault, with all its rough stones visible, to keep the sleet and wind out of a cathedral aisle, than all the fanning and pendanting and foliation that ever bewildered Tudor weight.
5. Also Fanning-out: the action of spreading out like a fan (cf. FAN v. 6); an instance of this.
1883. W. C. Russell, Sailor’s Lang., Fanning.—Widening the after-part of a ship’s top.
1889. Geikie, in Nature, XL., 19 Sept., 488/1. Doubtless many erratics and much rock-rubbish were showered upon the surface of the ice from the higher mountains of Scandinavia, but owing to the fanning-out of the ice on its southward march, such superficial débris was necessarily spread over a constantly widening area.
6. Comb., as fanning-machine, -mill. (= FAN sb.1 1 b.)
1747. Gent. Mag., XVII. 438. A Fanning Mill, used in Silesia, for cleaning of corn from tares, &c.
1843. Brande, Dict. Sc., Fanning-machine.
1874. Knight, Dict. Mech., Fanning-mill. A machine for cleaning chaff from grain by a blast of air.
