fanning

Pluralfannings

1. 1
   verb

   Present participle and gerund of fan.

   She kept fanning the embers until they finally caught fire.

   Fanning the crowd's anger, his speech only made things worse.

   Note

   One spelling does two jobs. It is the participle of continuous tenses (she was fanning herself), and it is also the verbal noun naming the activity. It carries every meaning of fan, from cooling with air to slapping a behind and flicking an old-style gun. Figuratively it means stirring something up, as in fanning resentment. The noun for the act shares the spelling but can take a plural, fannings.

2. 2
   nouncountable or uncountable

   The act of driving a current of air toward something, as with a fan or a waving motion.

   A vigorous fanning of the fire sent sparks into the night.

   The steady fanning kept the sleeping baby cool through the afternoon.

   Similarwaving, wafting, ventilation

   Note

   A noun that can count its strokes. James Grainger's The Sugar Cane (1764) has shrubs and trees that "woo the first glad fannings of the breeze," where the breeze itself does the fanning. The singular, usually followed by of, suits one deliberate effort, as in a fanning of the coals. The plural suits the repeated, gentle stirrings of air that poets like.

3. 3
   nouncountable

   A very small fragment of tea leaf, of the kind often used to fill tea bags.

   Each fanning that fell through the sieve was smaller than a grain of rice.

   Tea bags are often filled with fannings rather than whole leaves.

   Note

   This is a tea-trade grade rather than a stray fleck. Orthodox teas are sorted into whole leaf, broken leaf, fannings and dust, so fannings sit just above the finest siftings. The word is nearly always plural when it names the grade. The small particles infuse quickly and give a strong brew, which is why tea bags are filled with them.

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