from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 4th Edition
- n. Any of a breed of domestic pigeons having a rounded, fan-shaped tail.
- n. Any of several birds of the genus Rhipidura of eastern Asia and Australia, having a long, fan-shaped tail.
- n. Any of a breed of goldfish having a wide, fanlike double tail fin.
- n. A fanlike tail or end.
- n. Nautical The stern overhang of a ship.
from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License
- n. Any of several birds, of the genus Rhipidura, from Asia and Australia
- n. Any of several domestic varieties of pigeon having a fan-shaped tail
- n. Any of several goldfish having a large fan-shaped tail
- n. An overhanging deck at the stern of a ship
from the GNU version of the Collaborative International Dictionary of English
- n. A variety of the domestic pigeon, so called from the shape of the tail.
- n. Any bird of the Australian genus Rhipidura, in which the tail is spread in the form of a fan during flight. They belong to the family of flycatchers.
- n. the fantail goldfish.
from The Century Dictionary and Cyclopedia
- n. A fan-tailed flycatcher; any bird of the genus Rhipidura, as the Australian fantail, R. motacilloides.
- n. An artificial fan-tailed variety of the domestic pigeon.
- n. A form of gas-burner.
- n. A splayed tenon or mortise.
- n. In shipbuilding, the projecting part of the stern of a yacht or other small vessel when it extends unusually far over the water abaft the stern-post.
- Same as fan-tailed, 1: specifically applied to small old-world warblers of the genus Cisticola, as C. cursitans of Europe.
from WordNet 3.0 Copyright 2006 by Princeton University. All rights reserved.
- n. an overhang consisting of the fan-shaped part of the deck extending aft of the sternpost of a ship
Sorry, no etymologies found.
SEAL snipers, who were positioned on a deck at the stern of the Bainbridge, an area known as the fantail, had the three pirates in their sights.
I have seen more people fishing off the "fantail" of their jetskis.
Now that precisely coincides with the 'fantail' deer which some old-time hunters of my acquaintance say they have killed in the Black Hills country, though scientists say there never was any fantail deer.
It flatters me because it cuts in at the waist and has a little bit of extra detail with the 'fantail' at the front.
At night, the same movie was shown on an open-air screen on the ship's fantail for the troops.
One day, one particular Kamikaze pilot was headed right toward Joe, his gun and his mates: headed right for the fantail.
Standing on the fantail of a ship beneath a canopy of starlight alone on a moonless night, the first time he'd ever seen the Southern Cross and it made him weep for the beauty, the implication was, at once symbolic and wondrous.
Out there on fantail of my carrier, staring down, helped
As I stood on the fantail and looked back at the wake of the training ship the Empire State, I felt that it created a smooth sea in its path.
Seeing it fantail up under that hail of bullets reminded me of Mars.
Wordnik is becoming a not-for-profit! Read our announcement here.