Definition of "fane"
fane1
noun
plural fanes
(obsolete) A weathercock, a weather vane.
Quotations
The ſteeple had become old and ruinous; and therefore the preſent one was built about the year 1740. It had, at that time, four fanes mounted on ſpires, on the four corners; theſe being judged too weak for the fanes, were taken down in 1764, and the roof of the ſteeple altered.
1801, John Baillie, An Impartial History of the Town and County of Newcastle Upon Tyne, page 541
(obsolete) A banner, especially a military banner.
Quotations
So fate fell-woven forward drave him,and with malice Mordred his mind hardened,saying that war was wisdom and waiting folly.‘Let their fanes be felled and their fast placesbare and broken, burned their havens,and isles immune from march of armsor Roman reign now reek to heavenin fires of vengeance! [I.18-25]
c. 1935, J.R.R. Tolkien, The Fall of Arthur, Harper Collins, London, published 2013, page 18
fane2
noun
plural fanes
Quotations
And Pallas rear'd him; her ovvn unctuous fane / She made his habitation, vvhere vvith bulls / The youth of Athens, and vvith ſlaughter'd lambs / Her annual vvorſhip celebrate.
1791, Homer, W[illiam] Cowper, transl., “[The Iliad.] Book II.”, in The Iliad and Odyssey of Homer, Translated into Blank Verse, […], volume I, London: […] J[oseph] Johnson, […], page 52, lines 664–667
Crown me, therefore,—and minstrelling near to thy fanes, Bacchus, thickly-adorned with rosy chaplets will I dance with a full-bosomed maid.
1830, Anacreon, “Ode V. On the Rose.”, in T. W. C. Edwards, transl., Τα του Ανακρεοντος του Τηιου Μελη = The Odes of Anacreon the Teian Bard, Literally Translated into English Prose; […], London: […] [J. M‘Gowan and Son] for W. Simpkin and R. Marshall, […], page 22
Indeed, the bells were tolling, the people were trooping into the handsome church, the carriages of the inhabitants of the lordly quarter poured forth their pretty loads of devotees, in whose company Pen and his uncle, ending their edifying conversation, entered the fane.
1848 November – 1850 December, William Makepeace Thackeray, chapter 41, in The History of Pendennis. […], volumes (please specify |volume=I or II), London: Bradbury and Evans, […], published 1849–1850
He was thinking; but the glory of the song, the swell from the great organ, the clustered lights, […] the height and vastness of this noble fane, its antiquity and its strength—all these things seemed to have their part as causes of the thrilling emotion that accompanied his thoughts.
1918, W[illiam] B[abington] Maxwell, chapter V, in The Mirror and the Lamp, Indianapolis, Ind.: The Bobbs-Merrill Company