Definitions
from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 5th Edition.
- noun Any of a breed of domestic pigeons having a rounded, fan-shaped tail.
- noun Any of several birds of the genus Rhipidura of eastern Asia and Australia, having a long, fan-shaped tail.
- noun Any of a breed of goldfish having a wide, fanlike double tail fin.
- noun A fanlike tail or end.
- noun Nautical The stern overhang of a ship.
from The Century Dictionary.
- noun A fan-tailed flycatcher; any bird of the genus Rhipidura, as the Australian fantail, R. motacilloides.
- noun An artificial fan-tailed variety of the domestic pigeon.
- noun A form of gas-burner.
- noun A splayed tenon or mortise.
- noun 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 the GNU version of the Collaborative International Dictionary of English.
- noun A variety of the domestic pigeon, so called from the shape of the tail.
- noun 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.
- noun the
fantail goldfish .
from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License.
- noun Any of several
birds , of the genusRhipidura , from Asia and Australia - noun Any of several domestic varieties of
pigeon having a fan-shaped tail - noun Any of several
goldfish having a large fan-shaped tail - noun nautical An
overhanging deck at thestern of aship
from WordNet 3.0 Copyright 2006 by Princeton University. All rights reserved.
- noun an overhang consisting of the fan-shaped part of the deck extending aft of the sternpost of a ship
Etymologies
Sorry, no etymologies found.
Support
Help support Wordnik (and make this page ad-free) by adopting the word fantail.
Examples
-
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.
abu muqawama 2009
-
I have seen more people fishing off the "fantail" of their jetskis.
-
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.
The Young Alaskans on the Missouri Emerson Hough 1890
-
It flatters me because it cuts in at the waist and has a little bit of extra detail with the 'fantail' at the front.
Telegraph.co.uk - Telegraph online, Daily Telegraph and Sunday Telegraph 2010
-
One day, one particular Kamikaze pilot was headed right toward Joe, his gun and his mates: headed right for the fantail.
Pat LaMarche: Our Continuing Loss of World War II Heroes Pat LaMarche 2011
-
One day, one particular Kamikaze pilot was headed right toward Joe, his gun and his mates: headed right for the fantail.
Pat LaMarche: Our Continuing Loss of World War II Heroes Pat LaMarche 2011
-
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.
Southern Cross James Lloyd Davis 2011
-
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.
Pat LaMarche: Our Continuing Loss of World War II Heroes Pat LaMarche 2011
MaryW commented on the word fantail
In the sense of the stern of a ship:
David McCullough, The Path Between the SeasDecember 26, 2015