Pl. flabella (erroneously -i). [L. flābellum fan: see FLABEL sb.]
1. A fan; applied esp. to a fan carried in religious ceremonies.
1875. Maskell, Ivories, 91. The bishop’s pastoral staff, again, has not dropped out of use like the pax or the flabellum.
1889. C. D. Bell, Winter on Nile, xvi. 154. Officers wave round the shrine flabella and fans.
2. Science. A fan-shaped part of anything.
1867. J. Hogg, Microsc., II. i. 270. The frond consists of olive-coloured irregularly-divided flabelli.
