Word.ws English Dictionary

fantail

US/ˈfænˌteɪl/

fantail noun: any of several birds, of the genus Rhipidura, from Asia, Australia and New Zealand.

Noun

fantail (plural fantails)

  1. Any of several birds, of the genus Rhipidura, from Asia, Australia and New Zealand.
  2. Any of several domestic varieties of pigeon having a fan-shaped tail.
  3. Any of several goldfish having a large fan-shaped tail.
  4. An overhanging deck at the stern of a ship.
    • The Paranoids cast off, backed the Godzilla II out from the pier, turned and with a concerted whoop took off like a bat out of hell, nearly sending Di Presso over the fantail.1966 March, Thomas Pynchon, chapter 3, in The Crying of Lot 49, New York, N.Y.: Bantam Books, published November 1976, →ISBN, page 38
  5. A small windmill mounted at right angles to the sails, at the rear of the windmill, used to turn the cap automatically to bring it into the wind.
  6. A brimmed hat with just the back of the brim turned up.

Forms of fantail

pluralfantails

Origin of fantail

From fan + tail. The sense of Rhipidura-genus birds is a calque of translingual Rhipidura.

Words formed from fantail

Phrases with fantail

Questions about fantail

What does fantail mean?
Fantail means any of several birds, of the genus Rhipidura, from Asia, Australia and New Zealand.
What part of speech is fantail?
Fantail is a noun.
How do you pronounce fantail?
Fantail is pronounced /ˈfænˌteɪl/ (US).
What is the plural of fantail?
The plural of fantail is fantails.

Words near fantail in the dictionary

  1. fantabulously
  2. fantabulousness
  3. fantad
  4. fantads
  5. fantagonism
  6. fantail
  7. fantailed
  8. fantails
  9. Fantaing
  10. fantan
  11. fantard

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: fantail (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.

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