To move air toward someone or something using a fan, or to spread out like a fan shape.
From Old English 'fann' (winnowing fan), from Latin 'vannus.' The tool for cooling and the verb developed together from agricultural grain-winnowing.
Fans were invented to separate grain from chaff in farming, but then someone realized they could also cool people down—agricultural tools became comfort technology!
Complete word intelligence in one call. Free tier — 50 lookups/day.