I see this word in many places but don't get it.

From the [Wikipedia](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fan-out_(software)),

> 
> In message-oriented middleware solutions, fan-out is a messaging pattern used to model an information exchange that implies the delivery (or spreading) of a message to one or multiple destinations possibly in parallel, and not halting the process that executes the messaging to wait for any response to that message.
> 
> 
> 

but I don't know what it means under other contexts, for example,

* [AWS Kinesis enhanced fan-out feature](https://docs.aws.amazon.com/streams/latest/dev/enhanced-consumers.html)
* Fanout load test on a distributed service

Can you please explain this term to me? Are there other places using this term? Thank you.