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noun
- A hand-held device consisting of concertinaed material, or slats of material, gathered together at one end, that may be opened out into the shape of a sector of a circle and waved back and forth in order to move air towards oneself and cool oneself.
- An electrical device for moving air, used for cooling people, machinery, etc.
- Anything resembling a hand-held fan in shape, e.g., a peacock"s tail.
verb (fan, n, ing)
- (transitive) To blow air on (something) by means of a fan (hand-held, mechanical or electrical) or otherwise.
- We enjoyed standing at the edge of the cliff, being fanned by the wind.
- (intransitive) (usually to fan out) To move or spread in multiple directions from one point, in the shape of a hand-held fan.
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noun
- A pronged tool having a long straight handle, used for digging, lifting, throwing etc.
- (obsolete) A gallows.
- A utensil with spikes used to put solid food into the mouth, or to hold food down while cutting.
- A tuning-fork.
- An intersection in a road or path where one road is split into two.
- A point where a waterway, such as a river, splits and goes two (or more) different directions (see image).
- (chess) The simultaneous attack of two adversary pieces with one single attacking piece (especially a knight).
- (computer science) A splitting-up of an existing process into itself and a child process execute, executing parts of the same program.
- (computer science) An event where development of some free software or open-source software is split into two or more separate projects.
- crotch, Crotch (British usage).
verb
- To use a fork to move food to the mouth.
- (context, computer science) To spawn a new child process in some sense duplicate, duplicating the existing process.
- (context, computer science) To split a (software) project into several projects.
- To kick someone in the crotch.
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