Word Finder - pennon

definition

A thin, often triangular flag or streamer, especially as hung from the end of a lance or spear.

definition

A long pointed streamer or flag on a vessel.

synonyms

• pennant

definition

A wing (appendage of an animal's body enabling it to fly); any of the outermost primary feathers on a wing.

synonyms

• pinion

In hand-to-hand fighting before the walls of Newcastle, Douglas is said to have won Sir Henry's pennon, which he swore to fix upon the walls of Dalkeith.

The shops were bright with pennon and banner of resplendent colors.

Each " man " in the target also holds a pennon for windage.

This event is celebrated every June in the ceremony of "Riding the Common" - in which a facsimile of the captured pennon is carried in procession to the accompaniment of a chorus "Teribus, ye Teri Odin," supposed to be an invocation to Thor and Odin - a survival of Northumbrian paganism.

The Scots then retreated to Otterburn, where Percy, who was bent on recovering his pennon, attacked them on a fine August evening in 1388.

But the banner of the banneret always implied a more or less extensive command, while every knight was entitled to bear a pennon and every squire a pencel.

But the creation is almost the self-same with that in the old French ceremonies by the solemn delivery of a banner charged with the arms of him that is to be created, and the cutting of the end of the pennon or streamer to make it a square or into the shape of a banner in case that he which is to be created had in the field his arms on a streamer before the creation."

But while the banner was square the pennon, which resembled it in other respects, was either pointed or forked at its extremity, and the pencel, which was considerably less than the others, always terminated in a single tail or streamer.6 If indeed we look at the scale of chivalric subordination from another point of view, it seems to be more properly divisible into four than into three stages, of which two may be called provisional and two final.

It was his function also to display and guard in battle the banner of the baron or banneret or the pennon of the knight he served, to raise him from the ground if he were unhorsed, to supply him with another or his own horse if his was disabled or killed, to receive and keep any prisoners he might take, to fight by his side if he was unequally matched, to rescue him if captured, to bear him to a place of safety if wounded, and to bury him honourably when dead.

Cavers, nearer Hawick, was once the home of a branch of the Douglases, and it is said that in Cavers House are still preserved the pennon that was borne before the Douglas at the battle of Otterburn (Chevy Chase), and the gauntlets that were then taken from the Percy (1388).(1388).