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Fan   /fæn/   Listen
Fan

verb
(past & past part. fanned; pres. part. fanning)
1.
Strike out (a batter), (of a pitcher).
2.
Make (an emotion) fiercer.
3.
Agitate the air.
4.
Separate the chaff from by using air currents.  Synonym: winnow.



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"Fan" Quotes from Famous Books



... fence, and eaten it (the crop, of course, not the fence)—but we both went to help a neighbour. I was deputed to sew the bags, and Rory to pull out the tailings and bag them up for sending through again. I noticed that the fan pulley of the machine was secured with a home-made key, projecting about two inches beyond the end of the shaft; and as this was close beside where Rory was kneeling at his work, I pointed it out to him as a thing that meant mischief ...
— Such is Life • Joseph Furphy

... with an almost entire detachment of my inner mind; it would be intolerable for the real man to be engrossed in such performances. Looking over the head of the President of the Court of Appeal (he was much shorter than his speeches), I saw Elsa suddenly lean forward and sign with her fan to a lady who passed by. The lady stopped; she sat down by Elsa; they entered into conversation. For a while I went on buzzing and being buzzed to, but presently curiosity ...
— The King's Mirror • Anthony Hope

... and after that her presence never seemed to leave him. He could not see her, he could not touch her, and yet she was ever at his side. His brain ached with the thought of her, her breath seemed to fan his hands and hair. At night her face floated before him, and in his dreams her voice called him, saying: "Come to me, come to me, Richard. I am in need of you. Come to me. I ...
— The Ghost Kings • H. Rider Haggard

... wholly to kill it. We see groups meeting here and there to read "in a great book of heresy all one night certain chapters of the Evangelists in English," while transcripts of Wyclif's tracts passed from hand to hand. The smouldering embers needed but a breath to fan them into flame, and the breath came from William Tyndale. Born among the Cotswolds when Bosworth Field gave England to the Tudors, Tyndale passed from Oxford to Cambridge to feel the full impulse given by the appearance there of ...
— History of the English People, Volume III (of 8) - The Parliament, 1399-1461; The Monarchy 1461-1540 • John Richard Green

... National Armed Forces (Fuerzas Armadas Nacionales or FAN) includes Ground Forces or Army (Fuerzas Terrestres or Ejercito), Naval Forces (Fuerzas Navales or Armada), Air Force (Fuerzas Aereas or Aviacion), Armed Forces of Cooperation or National Guard (Fuerzas Armadas ...
— The 2001 CIA World Factbook • United States. Central Intelligence Agency.

... caution," he said. "If you disturb their order in the book, or even the position on the page, the names you send me will mean nothing to me. Not that it will be any great loss," he added whimsically. "I suppose I've become a sort of fan on this, like the business men who claim that their office work interferes ...
— Astounding Stories of Super-Science September 1930 • Various

... the thronged audience press and stare, Let stifled maidens ply the fan, Admire his doctrines, and his hair, And whisper, "What a good young man!" While he explains what seems most clear, So clearly that it seems perplexed, I'll stay and read my sermon here; And skulls, and ...
— The Miscellaneous Writings and Speeches of Lord Macaulay, Vol. 3. (of 4) • Thomas Babington Macaulay

... would have melted away long ago over that roaring fire,' said Arthur some time afterwards, withdrawing from his kettle to fan himself. 'Being a tall bag of bones, I suppose he can't dissolve readily. What's he going to ...
— Cedar Creek - From the Shanty to the Settlement • Elizabeth Hely Walshe

... of Mang-i, as to what filial piety consisted in, the master replied, "In not being perverse." Afterwards, when Fan Ch'i was driving him, the Master informed him of this question and answer, and Fan Ch'i asked, "What was your meaning?" The Master replied, "I meant that the Rules of Propriety should always be adhered to in regard ...
— Chinese Literature • Anonymous

... in the Mas d'Azil in Arriege, is of painted pebbles and fan-shells that had served as paint-pots. [Footnote: Piette (E.), Les Galets colorres du Mas d'Azil. Paris, 1896.] The pebbles had been decorated with spots, stripes, zig-zags, crosses, and various rude figures; and these were associated ...
— Castles and Cave Dwellings of Europe • Sabine Baring-Gould

... launch his fir-tree spear, and the other an arrow from the string. Then indeed the son of Priam smote him in the breast with an arrow, on the cavity of the corslet, but the bitter shaft rebounded. As when from the broad winnowing-fan in a large threshing-floor, the black-coated beans or vetches leap at the shrill blast, and the force of the winnower; so, strongly repulsed by the corslet of glorious Menelaus, the bitter arrow flew afar. But Menelaus, ...
— The Iliad of Homer (1873) • Homer

... was a great success, the presents being pretty and appropriate. Winnie smiled her delight over a dainty long-wished-for work-box; Dick chuckled at the splendid pair of skates now in his possession; Ada looked gratified when a lovely fan was handed down to her; and Nellie was speechless over a pretty ...
— Aunt Judith - The Story of a Loving Life • Grace Beaumont

... rushed at the Colonel. "As if she meant to eat the man," the Mayoress said afterwards, in the shadow of that threatened roof. But, impervious to the entreaty of the bright black eyes and the glittering hand that gesticulated with the urgent fan, he bowed, smiled, said a few pleasant words to his hostess, and walked "straight across"—as the Mayoress afterwards confided to the Mayor—to take a seat beside the large, placid, matronly figure palpitating in purple satin on ...
— The Dop Doctor • Clotilde Inez Mary Graves

... and borrowed a pair of Elliott's silken foot-gear, with which he and the dogs played ball until he decided to put them on. Then he lighted a cigarette and inspected his dress-coat. When he had emptied it of four handkerchiefs, a fan, and a pair of crumpled gloves as long as his arm, he decided it was not suited to add eclat to his charms and cast about in his mind for a substitute. Elliott was too thin, and, anyway, his coats were now under lock and key. Rowden probably was as badly ...
— The King In Yellow • Robert W. Chambers

... boggy to cross it. Changed to north; at three miles and a half on the course changed to north-west. Ascended some very rough stony hills, and got on the top of sandy table land thick with splendid stringy-bark, pines, and other trees and shrubs, amongst which, for the first time, we have seen the fan palm, some of them growing upwards of fifteen feet high; the bark on the stem is marked similar to a pineapple's; the leaf very much resembles a lady's fan set on a long handle, and, a short time after it is cut, closes in the same manner. At ...
— Explorations in Australia, The Journals of John McDouall Stuart • John McDouall Stuart

... in fact fast ebbing away, and all that could be done for the dying hero was to fan him with paper, and to give him lemonade to alleviate the great thirst that ...
— Chatterbox, 1905. • Various

... It has various animals, each sitting on its haunches. Three dogs, One a greyhound, one long-haired, one short-haired with bells about its neck; two monkeys, one with fan-shaped hair projecting on each side of its face; a noble boar, with its tusks, hoofs, and bristles sharply cut; and ...
— Stones of Venice [introductions] • John Ruskin

... For the woman was speaking now, holding out a lily-white hand to her and bidding her be seated in the Chinese willow chair that stood close by the wheeled one; a great green silk cushion at the back, and a large palm leaf fan on the ...
— The Man of the Desert • Grace Livingston Hill

... done as easy as turning a handspring," vowed Toby Jones, as all of them immediately spread out, fan-shape, like hounds that had lost the scent temporarily, and were searching for ...
— Afloat - or, Adventures on Watery Trails • Alan Douglas

... confounded by her superior wisdom and discretion. I gazed upon her open-mouthed and wide-eyed as she spoke, drinking in every word, yet very little enlightened, after all, by her remarks. She turned suddenly upon me, and tapped my cheek slightly with her fan. It was a way she had of ...
— Miriam Monfort - A Novel • Catherine A. Warfield

... considerable difficulty was caused by fog and smoke accumulating in the tunnels after blasting. This was generally worse on days when the barometric pressure was low outside, and worse in the North than in the South Tunnel. A 6-ft. fan, driven by an electric motor, was installed in the cross-passage at Station 274, 900 ft. from the shaft, the headings at that time being about 300 ft. in advance of this point, to force the air from the South into the North Tunnel, ...
— Transactions of the American Society of Civil Engineers, vol. LXVIII, Sept. 1910 - The Bergen Hill Tunnels. Paper No. 1154 • F. Lavis

... papered it and had hung the walls with photographs of ships and foreign ports, and with things he had brought home from his voyages: a boomerang, a South Sea club, Japanese straw hats and a Gibraltar fan with a bull-fight on it, and all that sort of gear. It looked to me as if Miss Mamie had taken a hand in arranging it. There was a bran-new polished iron Franklin stove set into the old fireplace, and a red table-cloth from Alexandria, embroidered with those outlandish ...
— Man Overboard! • F(rancis) Marion Crawford

... way, the student may by practice acquire the faculty to perceiving his own prana-aura. The simplest way to obtain this last mentioned result is to place your fingers (spread out in fan-shape) against a black background, in a dim light. Then gaze at the fingers with narrowed eyelids, and half-closed eyes. After a little practice, you will see a fine thin line surrounding your fingers on all sides—a semi-luminous border of prana-aura. ...
— Clairvoyance and Occult Powers • Swami Panchadasi

... Jehane was in pain, and King Richard dared not leave her, nor the physicians either. And in the morning early she was delivered of a child, a strong boy, and then lay back and slept profoundly. Richard set two black women to fan the flies off her without stopping once under pain of death; and having seen to the proper care of the child and other things, returned alone through the blanching ...
— The Life and Death of Richard Yea-and-Nay • Maurice Hewlett

... we had settled this subject long ago, Mr. Wilde," says Vera, tranquilly unfolding her large, black, feather fan—for it is hot—and slowly folding ...
— Vera Nevill - Poor Wisdom's Chance • Mrs. H. Lovett Cameron

... knew her. There was in our entrance and reception something remarkably chilling and solemn. We moved in silence up the long room; Mr. Searle advanced slowly, a dozen steps, to meet us; his sister stood motionless. I was conscious of her masking her visage with a large white tinselled fan, and that her eyes, grave and enlarged, watched us intently over the top of it. The master of Lackley grasped in silence the proffered hand of his kinsman and eyed him from head to foot, suppressing, I noted, a start of surprise at his resemblance to Sir Joshua's portrait. "This ...
— A Passionate Pilgrim • Henry James

... lays, just as he left her. When my partner came down, I spoke to him about it. He's a fan on motoring. That's his car over there; that white one. When I spoke to him about it, he went out and looked ...
— Ted Strong's Motor Car • Edward C. Taylor

... that night with an elated spirit, seeing in herself the future hostess of the fashionable throng there assembled. Instead of standing in a corner, listening with unctuous deference or sympathy to any who chanced to come against her, as was her wont, proffering her fan, or her essence-bottle, or in some quiet way ministering to their egotism, she now stepped freely forth upon the field of action, nodding and smiling at the young men to whom she might have been at some time introduced; whispering and jesting with some marked ...
— Graham's Magazine Vol XXXII. No. 3. March 1848 • Various

... it is very reasonable that faith in the sense already explained should be constituted the test of divine acceptance. If there be such a thing as Christ's winnowing fan, the quality of sterling weight for the discovery of which it is adapted cannot be conceived as anything other than this moral quality. No one could suppose a revelation appealing to the mere intellect of man, since acceptance would thus become a mere matter of prudence ...
— Thoughts on Religion • George John Romanes

... straw hat as a fan. With an unexpected and almost childlike gesture he suddenly threw the hat up on to the rack above his head, ...
— Hilda Lessways • Arnold Bennett

... satisfaction ran through the courtly throng, quite different in tone from the hum of conversation that had preceded it; and as he looked down the great singer saw many acquaintances who made signs of greeting to him, and the ex-Queen waved her painted fan high in the air, while a sprightly little Neapolitan duchess, who was in Rome for a visit and had known him a long time, actually blew him a kiss from the tips of her small gloved fingers. He smiled gravely, nodded once ...
— Stradella • F(rancis) Marion Crawford

... abiding character, for it had abiding causes, envy and dislike of a separate manner of life; and the professional anti-Semite,[17] who had his forerunners before the reign of the first Ptolemy, was able from time to time to fan popular feelings into flame. In those days, when history and fiction were not clearly distinguished, he was apt to hide his attacks under the guise of history, and stir up odium by scurrilous and offensive accounts of ...
— Philo-Judaeus of Alexandria • Norman Bentwich

... pyrotechnic display. Mr. Prohack shivered in the dank evening. Then he observed that blinds and curtains were being drawn in the noble mansion, shutting out from its superb nobility the miserable, crude, poverty-stricken world. With the exception of the glow in the fan light over the majestic portals, the noble mansion was now as dark as ...
— Mr. Prohack • E. Arnold Bennett

... sceptre to be sway'd, As to night the serenade, As for pudding is the pan, As to cool us is the fan, So man's for woman made, And woman ...
— The Book of Humorous Verse • Various

... the capital of the Grand-Duchy of Baden, a great railway centre; built in the form of a fan, its streets, 32 in number, radiating so from the ...
— The Nuttall Encyclopaedia - Being a Concise and Comprehensive Dictionary of General Knowledge • Edited by Rev. James Wood

... leap into space, and fluttered rather than fell into the abyss below. His legs began to work like those of a swimming poodle-dog, but quicker and quicker, while his tail, slightly elevated, spread out like a feather fan. A rabbit of the same weight would have made the trip in about twelve seconds; the squirrel protracted it for more than half a minute," and "landed on a ledge of limestone, where we could see him plainly squat on his hind legs and smooth his ruffled fur, ...
— Squirrels and Other Fur-Bearers • John Burroughs

... he took off a cocked hat that he wore even in the wilderness, and began to fan his heated face. A rifle cracked suddenly, and the hat flew from his hand into the air. The Indians uttered a long wailing cry like the Seneca "Oonah," but did not move from their places or show any sign that they wished ...
— The Keepers of the Trail - A Story of the Great Woods • Joseph A. Altsheler

... went away. Stella ran downstairs to the bedroom where aunt Hill sat beside her mother, fanning the invalid with a palm-leaf fan. Mrs. Joyce hated to be fanned in wintry weather, but aunt Hill acted upon the theory that sick folks needed air. Aunt Hill was very large, and she creaked as she breathed, because, when she was visiting, even in the country, she put on her black silk of an afternoon. She had ...
— Country Neighbors • Alice Brown

... these are only accidents of the way—the winds go free again. Those that do not go free, but close their course, are those that are breathed by the nostrils of living creatures. A great flock of those wild birds come to a final pause in London, and fan the fires of life with those wings in the act of folding. In the blood and breath of a child close the ...
— The Colour of Life • Alice Meynell

... you know, writing yourselves down in books as Naturalists! My name is Vespertila; my family are from Servia, at your service. Could you offer me a fly, or a beetle? I was chasing Judge Blue Bottle, or I should not have been trapped. Go to sleep, dears, and leave me to fan you. When you are asleep, I'll bite a hole in your ear, and sup bountifully on your ...
— The Aldine, Vol. 5, No. 1., January, 1872 - A Typographic Art Journal • Various

... by my side. I became aware that he had heard the discussion. He took my bouquet from my hand, and stood smelling it, while my two acquaintance went on. I was getting troubled and annoyed; Mr. Tempest's presence was not composing. I played with my fan nervously; at length I dropped it. Harry Tempest picked it up, and, as I stooped, our eyes met; he gave me the fan, and, turning from Messrs. Vane and ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Vol. II, No. 8, June 1858 • Various

... replaces the loss of falling flowers. Exquisite lanes, smothered in glorious vegetation, surround the picturesque Racecourse, that sine-qua-non of English occupation. Stately emperor palms, kitools with crimped green tresses, fan and oil palms, with the slender areca in countless thousands, vary the shadowy vistas branching out in every direction, with huge-leaved creepers and glossy rattans garlanding the gnarled trunks of forest-trees. The sculptured outlines ...
— Through the Malay Archipelago • Emily Richings

... us ask Him to purge us with His fan in His hand now, lest we should be found at last fruitless cumberers of the ground or chaff which is rootless, and fit only to be swept ...
— Expositions of Holy Scripture - Isaiah and Jeremiah • Alexander Maclaren

... Come, invent some scandal for us; let us make this place our social Exchange. I warrant a good bold piece of invention will fit them, too, some of them. Madam,'—my father bowed low to the beckoning of a fan, 'I trust your ladyship did not chance to overhear ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith

... behind, And many poor excuses did she find To linger by the way, and once she stay'd, And would have turn'd again, but was afraid, In offering parley, to be counted light: So on she goes, and, in her idle flight, Her painted fan of curled plumes let fall, Thinking to train Leander therewithal. He, being a novice, knew not what she meant, But stay'd, and after her a letter sent; Which joyful Hero answer'd in such sort, As he had hoped to scale the beauteous fort Wherein the liberal Graces lock'd their wealth; ...
— Hero and Leander and Other Poems • Christopher Marlowe and George Chapman

... The average fracas fan wasn't on an intellectual level to appreciate anything other than victory. The good guys win, the bad guys lose—that's obvious, isn't it? Not one out of ten Telly followers of the fracases was interested in a well-conducted retreat or holding action. They wanted blood, ...
— Mercenary • Dallas McCord Reynolds

... to the well," he said. "I will get a mug and give you a drink of our nice cold water. You must be tired, for the highway is warm, and dusty." He set the best chair for the traveller, and gave him a fan. ...
— Tell Me Another Story - The Book of Story Programs • Carolyn Sherwin Bailey

... the picture of a dark-eyed beauty gazing out discreetly from behind her lattice window, listening to the tinkling sound of her lover's mandolin, and sighing at the ardor of his passion; or again, she may be going abroad, with lace mantilla about her shapely head, armed with her fan,—that article of comfort and coquetry, as it has been called,—which is at once a shield and an allurement as wielded by her deft fingers. With the thought of Spain there comes also the snap of the castanets and the flash of bright-colored skirts as they move in time ...
— Women of the Romance Countries • John R. Effinger

... part of our general estimate of the man. There are but few people of note at the time who are not mentioned in these pages. We see Queen Anne holding a Drawing-room in her bedroom: "she looked at us round with her fan in her mouth, and once a minute said about three words to some that were nearest her." We see Harley, afterwards the Earl of Oxford, "a pure trifler," who was always putting off important business; Bolingbroke, ...
— The Journal to Stella • Jonathan Swift

... persistive constancy in men; The fineness of which metal is not found In fortune's love? For then the bold and coward, The wise and fool, the artist and unread, The hard and soft, seem all affin'd and kin. But in the wind and tempest of her frown Distinction, with a broad and powerful fan, Puffing at all, winnows the light away; And what hath mass or matter by itself Lies rich in virtue ...
— The History of Troilus and Cressida • William Shakespeare [Craig edition]

... largely grown and used by the Chinese that "fan," their word for rice, has come to enter into many compound words. A beggar is called a "tou-fan-tee," that is, "the rice-seeking one." The ordinary salutation, "Che-fan," which answers to our "How do you do?" means, "Have ...
— Science in the Kitchen. • Mrs. E. E. Kellogg

... mere watch-chain ornament—had a typical Japanese face, half mask, half mischief, and a tiny high voice which now and then broke into the dance. But dances, strictly speaking, they are not. They are really posturing and the manoeuvres of a fan. To me they are strangely fascinating, and, with the music, almost more so than our Western ballets. But there is a difference between the ballet and the geisha dances, and it is so wide that there is no true comparison; for whereas the ballet stimulates ...
— Roving East and Roving West • E.V. Lucas

... passage from the living-room, and went to spin hemp beside her masters. One tallow candle sufficed the family for the evening. The servant slept at the end of the passage in a species of closet lighted only by a fan-light. Her robust health enabled her to live in this hole with impunity; there she could hear the slightest noise through the deep silence which reigned night and day in that dreary house. Like a watch-dog, she slept with one ear open, and ...
— Eugenie Grandet • Honore de Balzac

... Mac," the hacker said as we grounded. I stuck my credit card in the meter and hopped out, not fast enough to duck the fan-driven pin-pricks of sand as ...
— Modus Vivendi • Gordon Randall Garrett

... firmament. Then by decree of Zeus down on the pyre Of slain Achilles, like a charging host Swooped they; upleapt the Fire-god's madding breath: Uprose a long wail from the Myrmidons. Then, though with whirlwind rushes toiled the winds, All day, all night, they needs must fan the flames Ere that death-pyre burned out. Up to the heavens Vast-volumed rolled the smoke. The huge tree-trunks Groaned, writhing, bursting, in the heat, and dropped The dark-grey ash all round. So when the winds Had tirelessly fulfilled their mighty task, Back to their ...
— The Fall of Troy • Smyrnaeus Quintus

... the 150 mm. howitzers."—"They're the 210's, calf-head."—"There go the regular guns, too; the hogs! Look at that one!" It was a shell that burst on the ground and threw up earth and debris in a fan-shaped cloud of darkness. Across the cloven land it looked like the frightful spitting of some volcano, piled up in ...
— Under Fire - The Story of a Squad • Henri Barbusse

... know her already! Long before setting foot in Japan, I had met with her, on every fan, on every tea-cup—with her silly air, her puffy little visage, her tiny eyes, mere gimlet-holes above those expanses of impossible pink and white ...
— Madame Chrysantheme • Pierre Loti

... rising from his seat; 'I shan't stay long, or that old woman will be seizing me again. Poor Kestrike, surely his sin has been punished enough in having such a wife,' and M. Vandeloup strolled away to speak to Mrs Riller, who, being bereft of Bellthorp, was making signals to him with her fan. ...
— Madame Midas • Fergus Hume

... dish—buttered eggs. She was in such good spirits that she was inclined to be coquettish, even when there was no man present to fascinate. "We are not allowed to talk about love in this school," she said—and hid her face behind her fan. "Besides, if it came to Miss Ladd's ears, poor Mr. ...
— I Say No • Wilkie Collins

... Moyne came to inform her of the messenger's arrival, he found her sitting by his son's bedside, fanning his fevered brow, as she had done the entire day. He gazed at them both in silence a moment before making known his errand. Then he took the fan from her hand and informed her of the messenger's arrival. His voice sounded strangely, and as she looked up at him she saw his face working with emotion. She cast down her eyes quickly. She could not tell why. All at once she felt that this quiet, maimed veteran ...
— Bricks Without Straw • Albion W. Tourgee

... She took off his collar and tie, unfastened the buttons, and then she was tugging at the shirt. It slid down, uncovering the shoulders. There was a dry, crackling sound, as of a fan stretched open—and Dolly sat down on the floor. "Oh-oh-oh," she ...
— The Trimming of Goosie • James Hopper

... head when he lay down so he could go to sleep. When he got to sleep I would slip out. If he waked up when I started to leave I would have to go back an' scratch his head till he went to sleep agin. Sometimes I had to fan de flies way from him while he slept. No prayer-meetings wus allowed, but we sometimes went to de white folks church. Dey tole us to obey our marsters an be obedient at all times. When bad storms come dey let us rest but dey ...
— Slave Narratives: a Folk History of Slavery in the United States From Interviews with Former Slaves, North Carolina Narratives, Part 2 • Works Projects Administration

... at seeing this family at such a time and place may be imagined. Mdlle. X. C. V. saw me directly, and pointed me out to her mother, who made a sign to me with her fan to come to ...
— The Memoires of Casanova, Complete • Jacques Casanova de Seingalt

... spontaneous kindly look from women, without offering something very substantial in exchange, was feeling that romantic passion for the voluptuous Jewess, which the sun and the plentiful food at Brineweald, had no doubt done an immense deal to fan to a flame in his breast. He had recognised very early that with Malster about, he stood no chance with Leonetta, and he found that had it not been for Leonetta's occupying the central place, he would have stood just ...
— Too Old for Dolls - A Novel • Anthony Mario Ludovici

... the edges of the bark showed signs of curling up. When the rest of the tribe saw this they pressed close, keeping their backs towards the piercing wind, but Guddhu told them they must go to the other side, as he wanted the wind to fan his fire. By and bye the spark grew into a flame, and a ...
— The Lilac Fairy Book • Andrew Lang

... drawing-room; his wife was coming forth then, her cloak and gloves on, her fan in her hand. "Maude, my darling," he exclaimed, "what has kept you? Surely you have not waited for ...
— Elster's Folly • Mrs. Henry Wood

... de Clagny behind her fan, "that Dinah sent for him, not so much with a view to the elections as to ascertain ...
— Parisians in the Country - The Illustrious Gaudissart, and The Muse of the Department • Honore de Balzac

... land, where citrons scent the gale, Where glows the orange in the golden vale, Where softer breezes fan the azure skies, Where myrtles spring and prouder laurels rise? "Know'st them the pile, the colonnade sustains, Its splendid chambers and its rich domains, Where breathing statues stand in bright array, And seem, 'What ails thee, ...
— The Works of Lord Byron: Letters and Journals, Volume 2. • Lord Byron

... of Pamela. He found her with Mrs. Hastings, surrounded by a little crowd of acquaintances. Pamela waved her fan, and they ...
— The Pawns Count • E. Phillips Oppenheim

... not be for everybody to look at. Oh, no! I am sick, I tell you. Je reve de mon petit coco parmi les sales animaux! Je me dis: Zut! il est fou! il est tape! Mais en moi meme je l'adore! Tout de suite I tell a creature who brings me my books, my fan, un espece de tapette, je m'en vais la, moi! He ask me where? I tell him I go to look for mon amant in Afrique Centrale! Mais oui! He thinks I am mad! I tell him so and I laugh! How I laugh. But he is right, ...
— Witch-Doctors • Charles Beadle

... can.' I said nothing, but made a curtsy, as if I had done so to what he said in public. In about a quarter of an hour I went out too; I had no dress other than before, except that I had a hood, a mask, a fan, and a pair of gloves in my pocket; so that there was not the least suspicion in the house. He waited for me in the coach in a back-lane, which he knew I must pass by, and had directed the coachman whither to go, which was to a certain place, called Mile End, ...
— The Fortunes and Misfortunes of the Famous Moll Flanders &c. • Daniel Defoe

... great middle stretches of the coast—Sierra Leone, the Grain Coast (Liberia), the Ivory, Gold and Slave Coasts, the Oil Rivers as the Niger Delta was then called, Cameroon, Gaboon and Loango. The swarm of their ships was particularly great in the Gulf of Guinea upon whose shores the vast fan-shaped hinterland poured its exiles ...
— American Negro Slavery - A Survey of the Supply, Employment and Control of Negro Labor as Determined by the Plantation Regime • Ulrich Bonnell Phillips

... all the rooms opening on the broad veranda; it is part of adobe and part of wood, the sides being covered with a network of fuchsia, heliotrope and jasmine reaching to the eaves of the brown tile roof; a broad, branching fig tree is in the little court before it, and a clump of yuccas and fan palms to the right, while down to the road and along the front stretches a broken hedge of Castilian roses, which we Californians love as the gift of old Spain, our first good nurse, we must always have a nurse it seems, England, Spain, Mexico and our present, very dry one—but ...
— The Beautiful Eyes of Ysidria • Charles A. Gunnison

... apprehension of the fact of Holy Baptism, and don't forget St. John the Baptist's words: I indeed baptize you with water unto repentance, but he that cometh after me is mightier than I. He shall baptise you with the Holy Ghost, and with fire: whose fan is in his hand, and he will thoroughly purge his floor, and gather his wheat into the garner; but he will burn up the chaff with unquenchable fire. Those are great words for you to think of now, and during this long Trinitytide which is symbolical of what one might call the humdrum ...
— The Altar Steps • Compton MacKenzie

... in the kid glove reminded me of the day I took my first lesson from Laurence Foley, Australia's champion boxer, and he had an eight-ounce glove on (thank Heaven!) on that occasion. In her right hand the bride carried a fan of splendid ostrich feathers, with which she brushed the flies off the groom. It was vast enough to have brushed away a toy terrier, to say nothing of flies, but it looked a toy in that ...
— Campaign Pictures of the War in South Africa (1899-1900) - Letters from the Front • A. G. Hales

... her honour, or her new brocade; Forget her prayers, or miss a masquerade; Or lose her heart, or necklace, at a ball; Or whether Heaven has doomed that Shock must fall. Haste, then, ye spirits! to your charge repair; The fluttering fan be Zephyretta's care; The drops to thee, Brillante, we consign; And, Momentilla, let the watch be thine; Do thou, Crispissa, tend her favourite lock; Ariel himself shall be the guard of Shock. To fifty ...
— English Poets of the Eighteenth Century • Selected and Edited with an Introduction by Ernest Bernbaum

... his childhood's sweetheart amid the fertile vales of far away Anjou. Nothing was more distant from him than the gilded furnishings, the frescoes, the marble Venus at his elbow. Beside her table, alone, and abstracted as Jerome, the woman toyed with a dainty fan; her impassive beauty, born of rigid training, betrayed not the inner desolation. Her face was calm and serious enough, the skin lay smooth and glowed with all those delicate ...
— The Black Wolf's Breed - A Story of France in the Old World and the New, happening - in the Reign of Louis XIV • Harris Dickson

... Add 6 tablespoons olive oil, 1 tablespoon gherkins, and 1 teaspoon each chives and parsley all chopped very fine, and 1 tablespoon minced green pepper. Blend well before pouring over meat. This may be served either hot or cold. Garnish with cucumber pickles cut into fan shapes. ...
— The Story of Crisco • Marion Harris Neil

... forgot to ask him where he took them, I'le follow him. O that I had a sea Within my breast, to quench the fire I feel; More circumstances will but fan this fire; It more afflicts me now, to know by whom This deed is done, than simply that 'tis done: And he that tells me this is honourable, As far from lies, as she is far from truth. O that like beasts, ...
— Philaster - Love Lies a Bleeding • Francis Beaumont and John Fletcher

... thenceforward, the swift, clear current would bear us to our goal. No more icy slush to the knee, no more putrid horse-flesh under foot, no more blinding blizzards and heart-breaking drift of snows. But the blue sky would canopy us, the gentle breezes fan us, the warm sun lock us in her arms. No more bitter freezings and sinister dawns and weary travail of mind and body. The hills would busk themselves in emerald green, the wild crocus come to gladden our eyes, the long nights glow with sunsets of theatric splendour. No wonder, in the ...
— The Trail of '98 - A Northland Romance • Robert W. Service

... and as he moved to stretch out his arm, Emma saw the hand of a young woman throw something white, folded in a triangle, into his hat. The gentleman, picking up the fan, offered it to the lady respectfully; she thanked him with an inclination of the head, and began ...
— Madame Bovary • Gustave Flaubert

... alight and sing Where rosy-bellied pippins cling, And golden russets glint and gleam, As, in the old Arabian dream, The fruits of that enchanted tree The glad Aladdin robbed for me! And, drowsy winds, awake and fan My blood as when it overran A heart ripe as the apples grow In ...
— Riley Farm-Rhymes • James Whitcomb Riley

... of hide and seek, they cannot stay quiet in their corner, but keep popping out their heads, if they are not immediately discovered; nay, sometimes, which is still worse, it is like the squinting over a fan held up from affected modesty. In Marivaux we always see his aim from the very beginning, and all our attention is directed to discovering the way by which he is to lead us to it. This would be a skilful mode ...
— Lectures on Dramatic Art and Literature • August Wilhelm Schlegel

... older nations. Unless something new is born here which has a peculiar power to save, wherein will America ultimately differ from other parts of Christendom? We must have schools in which the heart as well as the brain is educated, and newspapers which aspire to something higher than to fan prejudices and appeal to perverted tastes. Our hope is not in books which teach infidelity under the name of science, nor in pulpits which cannot be sustained without sensational oratory, nor in journals which trade on the religious sentiments of the people, nor in ...
— Beacon Lights of History, Volume VI • John Lord

... when at church on Sabbath, usually, on warm days, took Nancy, one of her servants, in her pew, and this girl had to fan her mistress during service. Unaccustomed to such a soft and pleasant seat, the servant would very soon become sleepy and begin to nod. Sometimes she would go fast asleep, which annoyed the mistress exceedingly. But Mrs. Miller had nimble fingers, and on them sharp nails, and, with an ...
— Clotelle - The Colored Heroine • William Wells Brown

... 'as laid aside the Business of her State, To wanton in the kinder Joys of Love— Play all your sweetest Notes, such as inspire The active Soul with new and soft Desire, [To the Musick, they play softly. Whilst we from Eyes—thus dying, fan the Fire. [She ...
— The Works of Aphra Behn, Vol. II • Aphra Behn

... defence, shrieked 'like twenty demons;' Beranger, too honourable to accuse her, underwent the same tempest; and at last both were soundly rapped over the knuckles with the long handle of Madame's fan, and consigned to two separate closets, to be dealt with on the return of M. le Baron, while Madame returned to her embroidery, lamenting the absence of that dear little Diane, whose late visit at the chateau ...
— The Chaplet of Pearls • Charlotte M. Yonge

... ways," says I, and I plucked a great fan-shaped leaf that grew adjacent. "First sit you down! And now give me your foot!" So, kneeling before her, I traced out the shape of her foot upon the leaf and got no further for a while, so that presently she goes about her household duties leaving me staring at my leaf and ...
— Black Bartlemy's Treasure • Jeffrey Farnol

... followed. Stairs led straight from the street to a basement chamber—candle-lit, with two exits. I had been there before, but to my companions it was new. We were in luck. A Dai Nippon had berthed a few hours previously, and here was its crew, flinging their wages fast over the fan-tan tables, or letting it go at Chausa-Bazee ...
— Nights in London • Thomas Burke

... thread from the eye of the needle from right to left under and around the point of the needle, draw the needle through, and pull the thread firmly, so that the purl is on the edge. At the end of the button-hole, near the end of the band, make a fan, by placing from five to seven stitches. The other end of the button-hole should be finished with a bar made by taking three stitches across the end of the button-hole, then button-hole over the bar, taking in the cloth underneath and pulling the purl toward the slit. ...
— Ontario Teachers' Manuals: Household Science in Rural Schools • Ministry of Education Ontario

... better than Boveyhayne. His old disability to say the things that were in his mind prevented him from re-establishing his intimacy with her. He tried to say, "Hilloa, Mary!" but could not do so, and his shyness affected her so that she stood before him, fingering her fan nervously, and answering "Yes" and "Oh, yes!" and "No" and "Oh, no!" to all that he said. He liked the sweep of her hair across her brow and the soft flush in her cheeks and the slender lines of her neck and the gleam of a gold chain that held a pendant suspended about her throat. ...
— Changing Winds - A Novel • St. John G. Ervine

... allay. Associations formed throughout the whole length and breadth of America, by the exertions of the assembly of Massachusets Bay, stirred up and kept alive the flame of discord, and occasion need but fan it, and it would kindle into a blaze; the lurid glare of which would be seen burning brightly, and raging furiously across the wide Atlantic. The proceedings in America were but as yet, in truth, the warnings of a terrible commotion—the first intimations of an irruption, more frightful ...
— The History of England in Three Volumes, Vol.III. - From George III. to Victoria • E. Farr and E. H. Nolan

... though young Holbrook avoided Eileen without seeming to do so. I could not understand his attitude unless he felt himself slipping and was trying to avoid temptation. I felt that his apparent indifference only served to fan the flames in Eileen's heart. She struggled with her wounded pride though there never was any outward sign of her feelings ...
— Reno - A Book of Short Stories and Information • Lilyan Stratton

... "I'm tellin' ye. Fan the lassies came in frae the mull last nicht they flang their working things frae them as ...
— Between You and Me • Sir Harry Lauder

... had shown him his folly. He had talked to the young engineer kindly, if firmly, being too shrewd an old diplomat to fan the flame of a headstrong love ...
— The Silver Horde • Rex Beach

... seat slowly, her fan moving languidly, as if she were too conscious of the worth of her voice to be affected by the murmurs of applause and admiration; and Stafford, as his eyes followed her, thought she resembled a superb tropical flower of rich and subtle colouring and soft ...
— At Love's Cost • Charles Garvice

... but he made no reply and kept perfectly still till Roy placed him on the grass in the shade of a horse chestnut tree. The boy threw himself down beside him, and began to fan himself with his straw hat. The next minute, with a shrill whistle, the train ...
— Two Boys and a Fortune • Matthew White, Jr.

... the banner; Rose-cheeked gardens that revel in spring; Rose-mouthed acacias that laugh as they climb, Like plumes for a queen's hand fashioned to fan her With wind more soft than a wild dove's wing, What do they sing in the spring ...
— Poems & Ballads (Second Series) - Swinburne's Poems Volume III • Algernon Charles Swinburne

... of the Algerian French, the conquest may have a salutary influence upon Saharan fanatics, though it increases the danger of the European traveller. The Moorish Governments of the coast deserve much censure. They often foster and fan the flame of fanaticism against European tourists. Besides, the conduct of the Maroquines towards the Jews ought not now to be permitted by the Governments of France and England. A missionary to the Jews, (himself a converted Jew,) who visited Tangier with me, could not ...
— Travels in the Great Desert of Sahara, in the Years of 1845 and 1846 • James Richardson

... by returning from one third to one half of the moist air after having passed through the kiln back to the fan room and by mixing it with the fresh and more or less dry air going into the drying room, that the humidity could be ...
— Seasoning of Wood • Joseph B. Wagner

... consequence of the uncertainty as to the age of these and other rocks, there is considerable difference of opinion as to the structure of the Western Alps. According to the view most widely accepted in France the main chain as a whole forms a fan, the folds on the eastern side leaning towards Italy and those on the western side towards France. The zone of the Brianconnais lies in the ...
— Project Gutenberg Encyclopedia

... game, an' she has her name in th' paper, that counts ye wan. So th' first thing ye do is to find th' raypoorter, an' tell him ye're there. Thin ye ordher a bottle iv brown pop, an' have ye'er second fan ye with a towel. Afther this ye'd dhress, an' here ye've got to be dam particklar or ye'll be stuck f'r th' dhrinks. If ye'er necktie is not on sthraight, that counts ye'er opponent wan. If both ye an' ye'er ...
— The Wit and Humor of America, Volume VIII (of X) • Various

... the mirror which fills the space between the long windows of her drawing-room, looking over either shoulder for different effects of the drifting and eddying train, and advancing upon her image with certain little bobs and bows, and retreating from it with a variety of fan practice and elaborated courtesies, finally degenerating into burlesque, and a series of grimaces and "mouths" made at the responsive reflex. In the fascination of this amusement she is first ignorant, ...
— Five O'Clock Tea - Farce • W. D. Howells

... mightier power, a moral canker, which hath eaten into their heart-cores,—a plague which the touch of the white man communicated,—a poison, which betrayed them into a lingering ruin. The winds of the Atlantic fan not a single region which they may now call their own. Already the last feeble remnants of the race are preparing for their journey beyond the Mississippi. I see them leave their miserable homes,—the aged, the helpless, the women, and the warriors, ...
— The American Union Speaker • John D. Philbrick

... any other bird where the force of its wings appeared (as in a butterfly) so powerful in proportion to the weight of its body. When hovering by a flower, its tail is constantly expanded and shut like a fan, the body being kept in a nearly vertical position. This action appears to steady and support the bird, between the slow movements of its wings. Although flying from flower to flower in search of ...
— A Naturalist's Voyage Round the World - The Voyage Of The Beagle • Charles Darwin

... easy swing as he walked, the perfect symmetry of every limb, the pose of his well-shaped head, from which he had removed the small cap with its short plume, raising his face that the fresh air might fan it, were all in harmony with the pride and glory of his young manhood. Suddenly his eyes shone with a smile of welcome, as a lady came from under the great chestnuts, which were already spreading their fan-like leaves from every ...
— Penshurst Castle - In the Days of Sir Philip Sidney • Emma Marshall

... murderin scamp; Aw tried to explain, but he wodn't give heed, For he wanted a job like all th' rest ov his breed. He tuk me to th' lock-up, an thear made a charge, At aw wor a lunatic rooamin at large. In a cell aw wor put, whear aw fan other three, 'Twor a small cell for four, but a big sell for me; An shiv'rin an shudd'rin an pairt druffen sick, That neet seem'd to me twice as long as a wick. Next mornin they dragg'd me to th' cooart-haase to tell ...
— Yorkshire Lyrics • John Hartley

... it for an instant into the boiling liquid, and, lifting it, would allow the liquid drop by drop to fall from the rod on to a strip of litmus paper. What he saw was evidently satisfactory, and presently he turned out the Bunsen lamp, walked to the window and opened it, and switched on an electric fan to aid the ...
— The Man Who Knew • Edgar Wallace

... with her particular regard as she passed out, and accepted with a delightful smile the fan which she dropped in passing, and which the Baron as speedily restored. He resumed his seat, ...
— The Avenger • E. Phillips Oppenheim

... my dear'—Philadelphia patted her shoulder—'and morone satin shoes and a morone and gold crape fan. That restored my calm. Nice things always do. I wore my hair banded on my forehead with a little curl over the left ear. And when I descended the stairs, en grande tenue, old Amoore curtsied to me without my having to stop and look at her, which, alas! is too often the case. ...
— Rewards and Fairies • Rudyard Kipling

... tall and thick, and the wind was blowing smartly. Fire asks for no better playground, and with incredible swiftness a wall of flame sprang up, crackling and roaring as it spread out fan-wise. ...
— Wings of the Wind • Credo Harris

... with Cowperwood in this crisis if he could make sure that the magnate would not sell him out. Mr. Stackpole was six feet one in his socks and weighed two hundred and thirty pounds. Clad in a brown linen suit and straw hat (for it was late July), he carried a palm-leaf fan as well as his troublesome stocks in a small yellow leather bag. He was wet with perspiration and in a gloomy state of mind. Failure was staring him in the face—giant failure. If American Match fell below two hundred he would have to close ...
— The Titan • Theodore Dreiser

... then the bright green of the sugar-canes, lower down the darker green of the nopal-trees, lower still the white and green and gold and bright yellow of the orange and citron groves, and lowest of all, the stately fan-palms, and date-palms, and bananas; all glittering with millions of dewdrops, that covered them like a ganze veil embroidered with diamonds and rubies. And still in the very next valley all was ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, No. CCCXLII. Vol. LV. April, 1844 • Various

... I know, all for physics! A doll with china eyes Played cleverly with a fan, Nearby a little cock in brass; Both sang in unison In a marvelous way, ...
— The Tales of Hoffmann - Les contes d'Hoffmann • Book By Jules Barbier; Music By J. Offenbach

... till some foreign aid To her own stature lifts the feeble maid. Then, if ordain'd to so severe a doom, She, by just stages, journeys round the room: But, knowing her own weakness, she despairs To scale the Alps—that is, ascend the stairs. My fan! let others say, who laugh at toil; Fan! hood! glove! scarf! is her laconic style; And that is spoke with such a dying fall, That Betty rather sees, than hears the call: The motion of her lips, and meaning eye, Piece out th' idea her ...
— The Poetical Works of Edward Young, Volume 2 • Edward Young

... so thick that the fan-shaped beams from the side lights could not pierce it as far as the bow, and the forward funnel was barely visible—a magnified ...
— The Wreck of the Titan - or, Futility • Morgan Robertson

... the stage. Now and then she moved rather restlessly in her chair. She had a fan with her and began to use it. Then she laid it down on the ledge of the box, then took it up again, opened it, closed it, and kept it in her hand. She felt the audience almost like a weight laid upon her. Their silent attention began to frighten her. She ...
— The Way of Ambition • Robert Hichens

... Prosperity gave him everything he desired as soon as he desired it. If he wanted peaches at Christmas, or cool air at mid-summer, the first came instantly from his hothouses, and the second was produced by an enormous fan, which hung from the top of the room, and ...
— Young Folks Treasury, Volume 3 (of 12) - Classic Tales And Old-Fashioned Stories • Various

... painted red and white like Scaramouch's in the pantomime. See, there comes another blue-riband, as I live. My Lord Bamborough. The descendant of the Hotspurs. The proudest man in England. He stops, he bows, he smiles; he is hat in hand, too. See, she taps him with her fan. Get away, you crowd of little blackguard boys, and don't tread on the robe of the lady whom the King delights ...
— The Virginians • William Makepeace Thackeray

... Vincent will be transported with your attention to her. I have sent the fan mounts for Lady Nelson and her, by Sir James Saumarez; who, after seeing the French prizes safe moored in the Tagus, conveys the Duke d'Hervie. He, poor man! although a Grandee of Spain, having been driven out of that kingdom by ...
— The Letters of Lord Nelson to Lady Hamilton, Vol. I. - With A Supplement Of Interesting Letters By Distinguished Characters • Horatio Nelson

... two in number, and are situated on each side of, and above the womb, in the region of the upper groins. They are small, fan shaped glands, and are connected with the uterus by small ducts which are known as the ...
— Sane Sex Life and Sane Sex Living • H.W. Long

... the same time. We conducted them into the tent, where they had scarcely been seated, when the king rose up, and in a very graceful manner threw over the captain's shoulders the cloak he himself wore, put a feathered helmet upon his head, and a curious fan into his hand. He also spread at his feet five or six other cloaks, all exceedingly beautiful, and of the greatest value. His attendants then brought four very large hogs, with sugar-canes, cocoa-nuts, and bread-fruit; and this part ...
— A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Volume 16 • Robert Kerr

... stately curves; and across the river was a multitude of splendid buildings, richly coloured and glittering with metallic tracery and facets, among a forest of moss-like and lichenous trees. And suddenly something flapped repeatedly across the vision, like the fluttering of a jewelled fan or the beating of a wing, and a face, or rather the upper part of a face with very large eyes, came as it were close to his own and as if on the other side of the crystal. Mr. Cave was so startled and so impressed by the absolute reality of these eyes that he drew his ...
— The Country of the Blind, And Other Stories • H. G. Wells

... largely dependent on the influence of man on man. We are all verily "Our brothers' keepers." We are commissioned by Christ not only to keep the faith but also to hand it down to others, not only to keep its fire burning in our hearts but to spread it, and to fan it into a conflagration. The gift of faith implies the charitable obligation of weaving our belief into our every day life and, through that life and its influence, into the lives of others. The plenitude of some make up for the penury of others. If St. John, to urge the precept of alms-giving, ...
— Catholic Problems in Western Canada • George Thomas Daly



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