Word of the
Day for Wednesday 21st May 2014
Vane \ veyn \,
noun;
1. A person who is readily changeable or fickle.
2.
Weather vane.
3. A blade, plate, sail, etc., in the wheel of a windmill, to be moved by
the air.
4. Any of a number of blades or plates attached radially to a rotating drum
or cylinder, as in a turbine or pump, that move or are moved by a fluid,
as steam, water, hot gases, or air.
5. Aerospace . a. any fixed or movable plane surface on the outside of a
rocket providing directional control while the rocket is within the
atmosphere. b. a similar plane surface located in the exhaust jet of a
reaction engine, providing directional control while the engine is firing.
6.
Ornithology . the web of a feather.
7.
Navigation, Surveying . either of two fixed projections for sighting an
alidade or the like.
8.
Archery . feather.
Quotes:
It must be admitted that he was a vane, turning on a pivot finer than those
on which statesmen have generally been made to work.
-- Anthony Trollope, The Life of Cicero , 1880
Spewing out “chaff,” that reanimated dead metaphor in British English for
useless verbiage or humbug,the grinding nonsense of the Office serves
merely as a weather vane for the clichéd winds of change.
-- Garrett Stewart, Edited by John O. Jordan, “Dickens and Language,” The
Cambridge Companion to Charles Dickens, 2001
Origin:
Vane is a variant of the word fane, meaning "flag; banner." It entered
English in the mid-1400’s.
Thanks to: www.dictionary.com
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