An electric fan mounted on the ceiling that circulates air in a room.
The ceiling fan was invented in the 1860s by American engineer Philip Diehl, but the concept comes from the 'punkah' - large cloth fans operated by servants in colonial India. British colonials couldn't survive Indian heat without these human-powered fans, so they mechanized the concept. The word 'fan' itself comes from Latin 'vannus,' a winnowing basket used to separate grain from chaff by creating airflow.
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