noun ·Rare ·Advanced level

Definitions

Noun

1. 1
   A small vane of bunting, feathers, or other light material, fastened to the end of a short staff and placed on the weather gunwale of a sailing ship to assist the helmsman to judge the direction of the wind.

   "she had an ugly knack of stopping, and swinging one leg all manner of ways, like a dogvane in a calm."

2. 2
   A cockade worn on a hat (worn in the British Navy in the 18th and 19th centuries) obsolete

Example

More examples

"she had an ugly knack of stopping, and swinging one leg all manner of ways, like a dogvane in a calm."

Etymology

From dog + vane.

Data sourced from Wiktionary, WordNet, CMU, and other open linguistic databases. Updated March 2026.