Wiktionary

pennon

English

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

Etymology

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

Pronunciation

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Noun

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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[ward] Blount, published 1623, →OCLC, [Act III, scene v]:
      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[2], 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,[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,[4]
      [...] 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., [5]
      Fair Commerce wav’d her pennons in our ports;
    • 1886, Louisa M[ay] Alcott, chapter 11, in Jo's Boys […] ‎[6], 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,[7]
      […] 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 […]; [a]nd by Robert Boulter […]; [a]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[8], page 11:
      Favonius gentle skims along the Grove,
      And sheds sweet Odors from his Pennons light.

Derived terms

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Translations

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References

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  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.”[1]

French

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Etymology

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Inherited from Old French penun.

Pronunciation

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Noun

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pennon m (plural pennons)

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

Derived terms

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Further reading

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