Syn. — Noted; remarkable; signal; conspicuous; celebrated; renowned; illustrious; eminent; transcendent; excellent.
— Famous, Renowned, Illustrious. Famous is applied to a person or thing widely spoken of as extraordinary;
renowned is applied to those who are named again and again with honor; illustrious, to those who have
dazzled the world by the splendor of their deeds or their virtues. See Distinguished.
Famoused
(Fa"moused) a. Renowned. [Obs.] Shak.
Famously
(Fa"mous*ly) adv. In a famous manner; in a distinguished degree; greatly; splendidly.
Then this land was famously enriched
With politic grave counsel.
Shak. Famousness
(Fa"mous*ness), n. The state of being famous.
Famular
(Fam"u*lar) n. [Cf. L. famularis of servants.] Domestic; familiar. [Obs.] Chaucer.
Famulate
(Fam"u*late) v. i. [L. famulatus, p. p. of famulari to serve, fr. famulus servant.] To serve.
[Obs.]
Famulist
(Fam"u*list) n. [L. famulus servant.] A collegian of inferior rank or position, corresponding to
the sizar at Cambridge. [Oxford Univ., Eng.]
Fan
(Fan) n. [AS. fann, fr. L. vannus fan, van for winnowing grain; cf. F. van. Cf. Van a winnowing
machine, Winnow.]
1. An instrument used for producing artificial currents of air, by the wafting or revolving motion of a broad
surface; as: (a) An instrument for cooling the person, made of feathers, paper, silk, etc., and often mounted
on sticks all turning about the same pivot, so as when opened to radiate from the center and assume
the figure of a section of a circle. (b) (Mach.) Any revolving vane or vanes used for producing currents
of air, in winnowing grain, blowing a fire, ventilation, etc., or for checking rapid motion by the resistance
of the air; a fan blower; a fan wheel. (c) An instrument for winnowing grain, by moving which the grain
is tossed and agitated, and the chaff is separated and blown away. (d) Something in the form of a fan
when spread, as a peacock's tail, a window, etc. (e) A small vane or sail, used to keep the large sails
of a smock windmill always in the direction of the wind.
Clean provender, which hath been winnowed with the shovel and with the fan.
Is. xxx. 24. 2. That which produces effects analogous to those of a fan, as in exciting a flame, etc.; that which inflames,
heightens, or strengthens; as, it served as a fan to the flame of his passion.
3. A quintain; — from its form. [Obs.] Chaucer.
Fan blower, a wheel with vanes fixed on a rotating shaft inclosed in a case or chamber, to create a
blast of air (fan blast) for forge purposes, or a current for draft and ventilation; a fanner. — Fan cricket
(Zoöl.), a mole cricket. — Fan light (Arch.), a window over a door; — so called from the semicircular
form and radiating sash bars of those windows which are set in the circular heads of arched doorways.
— Fan shell (Zoöl.), any shell of the family Pectinidæ. See Scallop, n., 1. — Fan tracery (Arch.),
the decorative tracery on the surface of fan vaulting. — Fan vaulting (Arch.), an elaborate system of
vaulting, in which the ribs diverge somewhat like the rays of a fan, as in Henry VII.'s chapel in Westminster
Abbey. It is peculiar to English Gothic. — Fan wheel, the wheel of a fan blower. — Fan window.
Same as Fan light
Fan
(Fan) v. t. [imp. & p. p. Fanned ; p. pr. & vb. n. Fanning ] [Cf. OF. vanner, L. vannere. See
Fan, n., Van a winnowing machine.]
