fantail
US/ˈfænˌteɪl/
fantail noun: any of several birds, of the genus Rhipidura, from Asia, Australia and New Zealand.
Noun
fantail (plural fantails)
- Any of several birds, of the genus Rhipidura, from Asia, Australia and New Zealand.
- Any of several domestic varieties of pigeon having a fan-shaped tail.
- Any of several goldfish having a large fan-shaped tail.
- 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
- 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.
- A brimmed hat with just the back of the brim turned up.
Forms of fantail
| plural | fantails |
|---|
Origin of fantail
From fan + tail. The sense of Rhipidura-genus birds is a calque of translingual Rhipidura.
Words formed from fantail
- Arafura fantail
- black-and-white fantail
- grey fantail
- northern fantail
- rufous-backed fantail
- rufous fantail
- streaked fantail warbler
- yellow-bellied fairy-fantail
- yellow-bellied 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
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.
Last updated:
Cite this entry: “fantail.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/fantail. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.
