FAN

the name of various instruments for exciting a current of air by the agitation of a broad surface. (1) An instrument made of wood or ivory, feathers, thin skin, paper, variously constructed and mounted, and used by ladies to agitate the air and cool the face. As an article of luxury the fan was well known to the Greeks and Romans. Fans are said to have been introduced into England from Italy in the reign of Henry VIII, and Quecn Elizabeth was very fond of them. There is a collection of fans at the Victoria and Albert Museum, London. (2) Any contrivance of vanes or flat. discs revolving by the aid of machinery, as for winnowing grain, for cooling fluids, urging combustion, or a isting ventilation, is also so called.