the.com/weathervane
a metal rooster that won the wind by simply refusing to commit.
means A pivoting device, often shaped like an arrow or rooster, mounted high on a building to show which way the wind is blowing.
from A plain compound of "weather" and "vane." The "vane" half is the interesting one: it descends from Old English "fana," meaning a flag or banner — a cloth that flutters and shows the wind's direction. Over centuries "fana" softened into "vane," the cloth was swapped for swiveling metal, and the rooster on top has its own legend: a 9th-century papal decree is sometimes credited with putting cockerels on church spires (echoing the cock that crowed at Peter's denial), though how widely that drove the fashion is murkier than the tidy story suggests.
- oldest known
- Greek Triton vane topped Athens around 50 BC
- why roosters
- a 9th-century pope decreed cocks atop churches
- physics trick
- unequal ends point the small side windward
- jefferson hack
- his vane linked to an indoor ceiling dial
- name origin
- vane comes from old word for flag
witch of salem weathervane — flying witch atop the witch house in salem, massachusetts, built 1692