English

Noun

fanwork ‎(plural fanworks)

1. (architecture) Fan tracery.
   • 1911, Maurice Hewlett, The Song of Renny, Charles Scribner's Son's (1911), page 389:

     The chapel — a soaring, slender-shafted building, with fanwork upon its roof and an apse deep and pointed — seemed full of light, withal it was hung with black velvet.

   • 2008, Geoffrey Ashe, King Arthur's Avalon: The Story of Glastonbury, Sutton Press (2008), ISBN 9780750948814, page 289:

     There were bits of a vaulted roof with panelled fanwork and moulded ribs, recalling the Henry VII Chapel at Westminster.

   • 2008, Leonard Ginsberg, Rhapsody on a Film by Kurosawa, Trafford Publishing (2008), ISBN 9781425174378, page 48:

     Now the Grand High Witch removes her mask and wig: A hideous beak and a decrepit bodice of skin and bones, like the stone ceiling fanwork in a Gothic chamber, her blotchy scalp a moonscape fermenting cobwebs.

2. A fan-shaped network of lines or projections.
   • 1999, Anne Marie Winston, Lovers' Reunion, Silhouette Books (1999), ISBN 9781459258266, unnumbered page:

     He smiled again, easily, dimples creasing his cheeks, and a tiny fanwork of lines crinkled the corners of his dark eyes.

   • 2006, Kage Baker, The Machine's Child, Tor (2007), ISBN 9780765354617, page 123:

     The bud vase lay on its side near the bush; a lacy fanwork of roots had spread out over the tabletop, following the path of the spilled water.

   • 2013, Leigh Evans, The Trouble with Fate, St. Martin's Press (2013), ISBN 9781250006400, page 222:

     He had three lines running across his forehead, and a fanwork of them radiating from the corner of each eye.

   • For more examples of usage of this term, see Citations:fanwork.
3. A creative work produced by a fan, based on a book, movie, television show, musical group, etc.

   William saw Michaela's fanwork of Powerpuff Girls, her favorite TV show of all time.

   • 2008, Tan Bee Kee, "Rewriting Gender and Sexuality in English-Language Yaoi Fanfiction", in Boys' Love Manga: Essays on the Sexual Ambiguity and Cross-Cultural Fandom of the Genre (eds. Antonia Levi, Mark McHarry & Dru Pagliassotti), McFarland & Company (2008), ISBN 9780786441952, page 132:

     Fans often declare that they prefer fanon to what actually happens in canon and fanworks to the actual series, which is lackluster by comparison.

   • 2009, Emily Turner, "Scary Just Got Sexy: Transgression in Supernatural and Its Fanfiction", in In the Hunt: Unauthorized Essays on Supernatural (ed. Supernatural.tv), BenBella Books (2009), ISBN 9781933771632, page 159:

     The result is a proliferation of fanworks that explore narratives of transgression as fans play with the permissibility of Supernatural's supernatural world.

   • 2010, Fan-Yi Lam, "Comic Market: How the World's Biggest Amateur Comic Fair Shaped Japanese Dōjinshi Culture", in Fanthropologies, Volume 5 (ed. Frenchy Lunning), University of Minnesota Press (2010), ISBN 9780816673872, page 239:

     Other factors contributing to the increased interest in dōjinshi and in fanworks were the development of fixed otaku landmarks and the spread of computers.

   • For more examples of usage of this term, see Citations:fanwork.

Hyponyms

• (creative work produced by a fan): fanart, fan fiction, fangame, fanvid