Webster
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Webster’s Revised Unabridged Dictionary · 1913

Vane

Vane (vān), n. [OE. & E. Prov. E. fane weathercock, banner, AS. fana a banner, flag; akin to D. vaan, G. fahne, OHG. fano cloth, gund fano flag, Icel. fāni, Sw. fana, Dan. fane, Goth. fana cloth, L. pannus, and perhaps to Gr.πῆνος a web, πηνίον a bobbin, spool. Cf. Fanon, Pane a compartment, panel.]

1. A contrivance attached to some elevated object for the purpose of showing which way the wind blows; a weathercock. It is usually a plate or strip of metal, or slip of wood, often cut into some fanciful form, and placed upon a perpendicular axis around which it moves freely.

Aye undiscreet, and changing as a vane. Chaucer.

2. Any flat, extended surface attached to an axis and moved by the wind; as, the vane of a windmill; hence, a similar fixture of any form moved in or by water, air, or other fluid; as, the vane of a screw propeller, a fan blower, an anemometer, etc.

3. (Zoöl.) The rhachis and web of a feather taken together.

4. One of the sights of a compass, quadrant, etc.

Vane of a leveling staff. (Surv.) Same as Target, 3.

Webster’s Revised Unabridged Dictionary, Noah Porter, editor (Springfield, Mass.: G. & C. Merriam, 1913). Public domain. Text as transcribed by MICRA, Inc., from Project Gutenberg. Changed for Deep Dive Bible: Greek, which our source spelled in Latin letters, set in Greek letters; entries of one spelling merged into one article; Greek words our source left out (shown as “?”), read from the 1898 printing, from the same plates (the Library of Congress’s copy), where the place could be found with certainty.