pennon

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English

White pennon on a knight’s lance (upper left-hand corner)
Norman pennons from the Bayeux Tapestry

Etymology

Inherited from Middle English penoun, pennon, from Anglo-Norman penun, penoun, from Old French penne (feather) +‎ -on (diminutive suffix).

Pronunciation

Noun

pennon (plural pennons)

  1. A thin, often triangular flag or streamer, especially as hung from the end of a lance or spear.[1]
    • 1590, Edmund Spenser, “Book II, Canto III”, in The Faerie Queene. , London: [John Wolfe] for William Ponsonbie, →OCLC, page 227:
      Her yellow lockes crisped, like golden wyre,
      About her shoulders weren loosely shed,
      And when the winde emongst them did inspyre,
      They waued like a penon wyde dispred
      And low behinde her backe were scattered:
    • 1599 (date written), William Shakespeare, “The Life of Henry the Fift”, in Mr. William Shakespeares Comedies, Histories, & Tragedies  (First Folio), London: Isaac Iaggard, and Ed Blount, published 1623, →OCLC, :
      Bar Harry England, that sweeps through our land
      With pennons painted in the blood of Harfleur:
    • 1819 December 20 (indicated as 1820), Walter Scott, chapter VII, in Ivanhoe; a Romance. , volume (please specify |volume=I to III), Edinburgh: Archibald Constable and Co.; London: Hurst, Robinson, and Co. , →OCLC, page 103:
      [] in spite of a sort of screen intended to protect them from the wind, the flame of the torches streamed sideways into the air, like the unfurled pennon of a chieftain.
    • 1846, Herman Melville, Typee, New York: Wiley and Putnam, Part 1, Chapter 23, p. 214:
      Precisely in the middle of the quadrangle were placed perpendicularly in the ground, a hundred or more slender, fresh-cut poles, stripped of their bark, and decorated at the end with a floating pennon of white tappa;
    • 1863, Christina Rossetti, “A Royal Princess” in Isa Craig (ed.), An Offering to Lancashire, London: Emily Faithfull, p. 3,
      Vassal counts and princes follow where his pennon goes,
    • 1909, Charles Henry Ashdown, chapter 5, in British and Foreign Arms and Armour, London: T.C. & E.C. Jack, pages 65–66:
      Nearly all the Norman spears were embellished with pennons of from two to five points.
    • 1971, Gwen White, Antique Toys And Their Background, page 69:
      In 1821 the hobby-horse could have a real mane and a pretty topknot of wire, pennons and bells but with no wheels at the back.
  2. (nautical) A long pointed streamer or flag on a vessel.
    Synonym: pennant
    • 1631, Michael Drayton, The Battaile of Agincourt, London: William Lee, p. 21,
      a ship most neatly that was lim’d,
      In all her sailes with Flags and Pennons trim’d.
    • 1780, Hannah Cowley, The Maid of Arragon, London: L. Davis et al.,
      Fair Commerce wav’d her pennons in our ports;
    • 1886, Louisa M[ay] Alcott, chapter 11, in Jo's Boys , Boston: Roberts Brothers, page 208:
      [] as his eye swept the horizon, clear against the rosy sky shone the white sails of a ship, so near that they could see the pennon at her mast-head and black figures moving on the deck.
  3. (literary, obsolete) A wing (appendage of an animal's body enabling it to fly); any of the outermost primary feathers on a wing.
    Synonym: pinion
    • 1630, Henry Lord, A Display of Two Forraigne Sects in the East Indies, London: Francis Constable, “The Religion of the Persees,” Chapter 4, p. 16,
      sodainly there descended before him, as his face was bent towards the earth, an Angell, whose wings had glorious Pennons, and whose face glistered as the beames of the Sunne,
    • 1667, John Milton, “Book II”, in Paradise Lost. , London: [Samuel Simmons], and are to be sold by Peter Parker ; nd by Robert Boulter ; nd Matthias Walker, , →OCLC; republished as Paradise Lost in Ten Books: , London: Basil Montagu Pickering , 1873, →OCLC, lines 933-934:
      Fluttring his pennons vain plumb down he [Satan] drops
      Ten thousand fadom deep,
    • 1751, Moses Mendez, “Summer”, in The Seasons, page 11:
      Favonius gentle skims along the Grove,
      And sheds sweet Odors from his Pennons light.

Derived terms

Translations

References

  1. ^ John Cowell, The Interpreter: or Booke containing the signification of words wherein is set foorth the true meaning of all, Cambridge: John Legate, 1607: “Penon, is a Standard, Banner, or Ensigne, caried in warre.”

French

Etymology

Inherited from Old French penun.

Pronunciation

Noun

pennon m (plural pennons)

  1. pennon (triangular flag)
  2. (nautical) pennant
  3. (historical) a local urban militia in medieval Lyon

Derived terms

Further reading