pennon

noun

Etymology: From Late Middle English pennon, penoun (“long narrow flag attached to a lance or used in other contexts; one who bears a pennon, knight bachelor; plume of feathers; strip around the edge of a shield”), from Anglo-Norman penun (“feather of an arrow”), penoun (“flag attached to a lance”), Middle French pennon, penoun, and Old French penon (“flag attached to a lance”) (modern French pennon), from penne (“feather; wing”) + -on (diminutive suffix). Penne is inherited from Latin penna (“feather (especially a flight feather), pinion; wing”), ultimately from Proto-Indo-European *peth₂- (“to spread out; to fly (in the sense of spreading out wings)”).

1. A long, narrow flag or streamer, often swallowtailed or triangular, usually hung at the top of a helmet or lance, originally the ensign of a knight under the rank of knight banneret, and later of a lancer regiment.

   “Her yellovv lockes criſped, like golden vvyre, / About her ſhoulders vveren looſely ſhed, / And vvhen the vvinde emongſt them did inſpyre, / They vvaued like a penon vvyde diſpred / And lovv behinde her backe vvere ſcattered: […]”

   “High on his pointed lance his Pennon bore / His Cretan Fight, the conquer'd Minotaure: […]”

2. Any banner or flag.

   “Ceſar perceyuing the camp of hys enemyes to be empty, rolled vp his banners, and hid the penons and anteſignes of his ſouldiers, and conueying hys ſouldiers by ſlender companies out of hys greater camp into the leſſer, to thentent [the intent] it ſhould not be perceiued out of the towne, […]”

   “Barre Harry England, that ſvveepes through our Land / VVith Penons painted in the blood of Harflevv: / Ruſh on his Hoaſt, as doth the melted Snovv / Vpon the Valleyes, vvhoſe lovv Vaſſal Seat, / The Alpes doth ſpit, and void his rhevvme vpon.”

3. Synonym of pinion (“a wing”).

   “[S]odainly 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, […]”

   “Fluttring his pennons vain plumb dovvn he [Satan] drops / Ten thousand fadom deep, […]”

4. A heraldic charge in the form of a pennon (sense 1).
5. Synonym of pennant (“a flag or streamer used on a ship”).

   “Lincolne a Ship moſt neatly that vvas lim'd, / In all her Sailes vvith Flags and Pennons trim'd.”

   “Fair Commerce vvav'd her pennons in our ports; / The fertile plough ſubdu'd our ſterile fields; / Our granaries, like thoſe of Egypt, drevv / From neighb'ring countries, riches and renovvn.”

6. A Knight Bachelor; also, a soldier who carries an ensign.

   “The Duke of Brabant had .xxiiij. Banners and .lxxx. Pennons, and in all, .vij. thouſand men.”

   “Surely he [George Purient] vvas a man of merit, being Penon or Enſign-bearer to one Eſquire, of the body to three ſucceſſive Kings, and M[aste]r of the Horſe to one of their Queens, to vvhom his vvife vvas chief Lady of Honour.”

7. An ornament that dangles or hangs down.
8. Something resembling a pennon (sense 1).

   “[A] pillar of dark smoke, which ascended from the chimnies of the donjon, and spread its long dusky pennon through the clear ether, indicated that it was inhabited.”

   “There were little factory villages, too, or larger towns, with their tall chimneys, and their pennons of black smoke, their ugliness of brick-work, and their heaps of refuse matter from the furnace, which seems to be the only kind of stuff which Nature cannot take back to herself and resolve into the elements, when man has thrown it aside.”