"wind vane" is an acceptable part of a sentence in written English.
You can use it as a noun, for example: "The wind vane on the roof indicated a strong breeze."
This is achieved by a wind vane that pivots the instrument around a vertical axis.
He was nervous though, his thumbs swirling around one another like a wind vane.
Wind direction and speed were measured continuously close to the sampling device using a wind vane coupled to an anemometer.
Two of them, a wind vane for measuring direction and an anemometer for measuring speed, sit atop a telescoping pole.
The data is uploaded every 10 seconds to her Web site, so a strangely mesmerizing digital wind vane flips around almost in real time.
Inside is a weather station, one of four that the team has installed, covered in boxes and wires and topped with a spinning wind vane.
Wind vanes at the peaks would add a real friendly touch.
Self-steering gear, such as wind vanes and electronic autohelms, tend to take on a life of their own, leaving two skippers on board, one mechanical, one real.
Rasta-colored flags serve as wind vanes, tinted glass bottles are embedded in walls, and exteriors are painted with pictures of suns, cow spots, rainbows and a Klimt-like rendering of a woman.
Sheridan Sansegundo's "Jumping Jack" puppets combine portraiture with the symbolism of playful guardian spirits presiding over the countryside, and Mr. Richenburg's "Air Current" sculptures lightheartedly affirm their kinship with wind vanes and whirligigs.
What caught Huler's eye weren't Beaufort's numbers but the phrases that accompanied them: "0, 'calm... smoke rises vertically....' 1, 'direction of wind shown by smoke but not by wind vanes....' 2, 'wind felt on face; leaves rustle; ordinary vane moved by the wind.' " The definitions were so clear and concise Huler considered them "the apex of descriptive nonfiction in English".
