pennon
Americannoun
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a distinctive flag in any of various forms, as tapering, triangular, or swallow-tailed, formerly one borne on the lance of a knight.
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a pennant.
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any flag or banner.
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a wing or pinion.
noun
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a long flag, often tapering and rounded, divided, or pointed at the end, originally a knight's personal flag
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a small tapering or triangular flag borne on a ship or boat
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a poetic word for wing
Other Word Forms
Etymology
Origin of pennon
1325–75; Middle English penon < Middle French, augmentative of Old French pene < Latin penna or pinna feather. See pen 1
Example Sentences
Examples are provided to illustrate real-world usage of words in context. Any opinions expressed do not reflect the views of Dictionary.com.
Sir Robert now stood before them, revealed not as a knight in glittering plate armor with pennon flying from his lance, but as what he had been all along: a grave, punctilious, honest lawyer.
From Slate ● Mar. 25, 2019
They brought with them a gift for the Belgian Society of Napoleonic Studies: a pennon of the Imperial Guard, carried from the battlefield 138 years ago.
From Time Magazine Archive
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There were fourteen who were to adventure forth under Billy's pennon.
From The Suprising Adventures of Sir Toady Lion With Those of General Napoleon Smith by S. R. (Samuel Rutherford) Crockett
An airy structure pitched beneath the tower appeared in the morning surmounted by a red pennon fluttering in the air, and frantic to be free.
From The Browning Cyclop?dia A Guide to the Study of the Works of Robert Browning by Edward Berdoe
As for the American standard, it does not exist, save as a vacillating pennon.
From Dorothy and other Italian Stories by Constance Fenimore Woolson
Definitions and idiom definitions from Dictionary.com Unabridged, based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2023
Idioms from The American Heritage® Idioms Dictionary copyright © 2002, 2001, 1995 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company.