fanon

¹

[ fan-uhn ]

noun

, Ecclesiastical.

1. a maniple.
2. Also called orale. a striped scarflike vestment worn by the pope over the alb when celebrating solemn Pontifical Mass.

Fanon

²

[ fan-uhn; French fa-nawn ]

noun

1. Frantz (O·mar) [frants , oh, -mahr, f, r, ah, n, ts aw-, mar], 1925–61, West Indian psychiatrist and political theorist, born in Martinique; in Algeria after 1953.

fanon

/ ˈfænən /

noun

1. a collar-shaped vestment worn by the pope when celebrating mass
2. (formerly) various pieces of embroidered fabric used in the liturgy

Word History and Origins

Origin of fanon¹

1350–1400; Middle English fano ( u ) n < Anglo-French; Old French fanum < Old Low Franconian *fano piece of fabric; compare Old High German, Old Saxon fano in same sense ( German Fahne flag), early Medieval Latin fano maniple; vane, gonfalon

Word History and Origins

Origin of fanon¹

Middle English, of Germanic origin; related to Old High German fano cloth

Example Sentences

They quoted postcolonial theorist Frantz Fanon, Black liberation activist Marcus Garvey, the late poet Benjamin Zephaniah, and comedian Romesh Ranganathan, who has frequently joked that his mum calls him a coconut for not speaking Tamil.

From BBC

Although she sold all kinds of books, she definitely had a segment that was based on Black radical literature — Fanon, Assata and all the formative Black leftist texts were there.

From Los Angeles Times

Shatz’s account of Frantz Fanon’s personal life and political work, "The Rebel’s Clinic," rescues Fanon’s advocacy of anti-colonial violence from the reductionist mischaracterizations of his Western fan club.

From Salon

Dominique Morisseau’s characters are, as the post-colonial thinker Frantz Fanon once described himself, often paralyzed “at the crossroads between nothingness and infinity.”

From New York Times

Also up this week, we recommend a couple of big biographies, of the choreographer Martha Graham and the Marxist revolutionary Frantz Fanon, along with a memoir of undocumented immigration and a true-crime history about a 1931 murder that exposed a network of political corruption.

From New York Times