Fan

How to spell fan

3 letters · 1 syllable

How to pronounce fan

What does fan mean?

1. nounA device with rotating blades or a folding shape that moves air to cool a person or space.
2. nounA person who admires and follows a sport, performer, or interest with enthusiasm.
3. verbTo move air towards something, or to spread items out in the shape of a fan.

Fan in a sentence

• noun

  The office fan hummed quietly through the afternoon heat.

• noun

  Every loyal fan wore the team colours to the match.

• verb

  A gentle breeze began to fan the embers back to life.

• noun

  She switched on the ceiling fan before going to bed.

• noun

  She has been a lifelong fan of the band.

• verb

  The dealer would fan the cards across the table for inspection.

Where does fan come from?

Language of origin: Latin

The word splits into two histories that happen to look identical. The cooling sense is the older one: Old English had 'fann', borrowed from the Latin 'vannus', which named the broad basket farmers shook to toss grain into the air so the lighter chaff blew away. From that winnowing tool the word came to mean any device that stirs the air, and by extension the folding hand fan and the bladed electric fan. The enthusiast sense is much younger and quite separate; it grew up in late nineteenth century American English as a clipped form of 'fanatic', which traces to the Latin 'fanaticus', meaning 'inspired by a god' or 'frenzied', itself from 'fanum', a temple. The two strands sit comfortably side by side today because the spelling is short and gives no trouble, even though one came from a farm tool and the other from religious frenzy.

How the word is built

• fan (single root; the device sense from Latin vannus 'winnowing basket'; the enthusiast sense clipped from 'fanatic')