DICT.TW Dictionary Taiwan

 Vane n.
 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. Zool. 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.
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