Fanners

Part of speech: noun

Definitions

1. A device or tool used for creating airflow to cool or move air around
2. individuals who fan out or spread something, such as fans in a crowd
3. instruments designed to enhance ventilation or promote drying processes

Etymology: "Fanners" is the plural of "fanner," an agent noun formed from the verb "fan" with the suffix "-er," so it denotes people or things that fan. The verb "fan" in its air-moving sense goes back to Old English "fann," meaning a winnowing device for separating grain from chaff, which came from the Latin "vannus," a winnowing basket. The word's core idea, moving air to blow chaff away, is still visible in the fan you use to cool a room. The "fanners" in your definition, people who spread out across a crowd or a field, draw on the same underlying image of a spreading, opening motion, as in a fan of cards or a fan-shaped formation of troops. That sense of spreading outward came into English from the earlier notion of the fan's folding and opening shape, which is an extension of the basic air-moving meaning rather than a separate word.