fane

/feɪn/

fane noun: a weathercock, a weather vane.

Noun (1)

fane (plural fanes)

(obsolete) A weathercock, a weather vane.
- The ſteeple had become old and ruinous; and therefore the preſent one was built about the year 1740. It had, at that time, four fanes mounted on ſpires, on the four corners; theſe being judged too weak for the fanes, were taken down in 1764, and the roof of the ſteeple altered.1801, John Baillie, An Impartial History of the Town and County of Newcastle Upon Tyne, page 541
(obsolete) A banner, especially a military banner.
- So fate fell-woven forward drave him,
  and with malice Mordred his mind hardened,
  saying that war was wisdom and waiting folly.
  ‘Let their fanes be felled and their fast places
  bare and broken, burned their havens,
  and isles immune from march of arms
  or Roman reign now reek to heaven
  in fires of...c. 1935, J.R.R. Tolkien, The Fall of Arthur, Harper Collins, London, published 2013, →ISBN, page 18

Noun (2)

fane (plural fanes)

A temple or sacred place.
- And Pallas rear'd him; her ovvn unctuous fane / She made his habitation, vvhere vvith bulls / The youth of Athens, and vvith ſlaughter'd lambs / Her annual vvorſhip celebrate.1791, Homer, “[The Iliad.] Book II.”, in W[illiam] Cowper, transl., The Iliad and Odyssey of Homer, Translated into Blank Verse, […], volume I, London: […] J[oseph] Johnson, […], →OCLC, page 52...
- Crown me, therefore,—and minstrelling near to thy fanes, Bacchus, thickly-adorned with rosy chaplets will I dance with a full-bosomed maid.1830, Anacreon, “Ode V. On the Rose.”, in T. W. C. Edwards, transl., Τα του Ανακρεοντος του Τηιου Μελη = The Odes of Anacreon the Teian Bard, Literally Translated into English Prose; […], London: […]...

Proper noun capitalized: Fane

Fane (plural Fanes)

A surname.

fane meaning in Tamil and Malayalam

fane in Malayalam

കൊടി, ക്ഷേത്രം, പള്ളി, കാറ്റാടി, കാറ്റുകാട്ടി

Examples of fane in a sentence

Fanes are built around it for a distance of 3, 4 or 5 Indian miles; but whether these are Jaina, or more strictly Hindu is not mentioned.1850, The Madras Journal of Literature and Science, volume 16, page 64:
Nature was to some extent a fane to them.1884, Henry David Thoreau, Summer: From the Journal of Henry D. Thoreau, page 78:
It was a wonderful sight to see the full moon looking down on the ruined fane of Kør.1886 October – 1887 January, H[enry] Rider Haggard, She: A History of Adventure, London: Longmans, Green, and Co., published 1887, →OCLC:
And this ideal conception is found beaming like a golden ray upon each idol, however coarse and grotesque, in the crowded galleries of the sombre fanes of India and other Mother lands of cults.1888, H. P. Blavatsky, The Secret Doctrine, Volume 1: Cosmogenesis, Quest Books 1993 page 458

Forms of fane

Noun
plural	fanes
alternative form (obsolete)	faine
alternative form (obsolete)	phane
Proper noun
plural	Fanes

Origin of fane

From Middle English fane, from Old English fana (“cloth, banner”), from Proto-West Germanic *fanō, from Proto-Germanic *fanô (“cloth, flag”), from Proto-Indo-European *peh₂n- (“to weave; something woven; cloth, fabric, tissue”). Doublet of fanon and vane.

From Middle English fane (“temple”), from Latin fānum (“temple, place dedicated to a deity”). Doublet of fanum.

Words that rhyme with fane

48 more rhymesFewer rhymes

Questions about fane

What does fane mean?: Fane means a weathercock, a weather vane.
What is fane in Tamil?: Fane in Tamil is கோயில், துவசம். See Fane meaning in Tamil.
How do you use fane in a sentence?: Fanes are built around it for a distance of 3, 4 or 5 Indian miles; but whether these are Jaina, or more strictly Hindu is not mentioned.
What part of speech is fane?: Fane can be a noun or a proper noun.
How do you pronounce fane?: Fane is pronounced /feɪn/.
What is the plural of fane?: The plural of fane is fanes.

Words near fane in the dictionary

Adapted from Wiktionary: fane (page history and authors); Fane (page history and authors); fane (Tamil Wiktionary) (page history and authors); fane (Malayalam Wiktionary) (page history and authors). Text available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 license. Word.ws reformatted the entry and added links. Wiktionary data of 2026-09-02.

Last updated: 2026-09-02

Pronunciation audio from Wikimedia Commons, each file under its own free license: En-us-fane.ogg.

Cite this entry: “fane.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/fane. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.