fanlight

plural fanlights

1. architectureA semicircular or semioval window over a door or other window, normally having a fan-like structure of ribs; sometimes hinged to the transom.

   Limpet was out, but with a deal of struggling he managed to screw himself through the fanlight, removing in that process the dust of many ages.

   1913, Norman Lindsay, A Curate in Bohemia, Sydney: N.S.W. Bookstall Co., published 1932, page 90

   4 more examples

   One house, however, second from the corner, was still occupied entire; and at the door of this, which wore a great air of wealth and comfort, though it was now plunged in darkness except for the fan-light, Mr. Utterson stopped and knocked. A well-dressed, elderly servant opened the door.

   1886 January 5, Robert Louis Stevenson, “Search for Mr. Hyde”, in Strange Case of Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde, London: Longmans, Green, and Co., →OCLC, page 26

   Flutings also adorn the short architraves each side of the fanlight, and the abacus of the pilaster columns which is carried across a supplementary lintel in front of the lintel proper, the latter being several inches to the rear because of the deeply recessed arrangement of the door.

   1920, Frank Cousins, Phil M. Riley, The Colonial Architecture of Philadelphia, Boston: Little, Brown, and Company

   This street is Summer. Faces of brick run together to make a single block-long face. The house numbers are set in fanlights of stained glass above the doors.

   1960, John Updike, Rabbit, Run, page 65

   It turned out to be a big gloomy pile with ivy and peeling walls and a smashed fanlight over the door, the kind of place where you picture a mad stepdaughter locked up in the attic.

   1982, John Banville, The Newton Letter

2. An electric fan, usually a ceiling fan, that is also a light fixture.