Each week The Sun's John McIntyre presents a moderately obscure but evocative word with which you may not be familiar — another brick to add to the wall of your working vocabulary. This week's word:
GONFALON
A
gonfalon
(pronounced GAHN-fu-lahn) is a flag suspended from a crosspiece instead of from an upright staff. It often ends in streamers. The word comes from the Frankish
gundfano
, "battle standard," and the Italian
gonfalone
. The Italian is particularly appropriate because such banners were the standards of some Italian republics.
The person who bears the gonfalon is a gonfalonier.
Example:
Major Hogan to Richard Sharpe in
Sharpe's Rifles
(1993): "But now, at dawn tomorrow, with the help of my agent Commandante Teresa, who I believe you've met, I want you to seize the chapel at Torre Castro and hold it against all comers until Major Vivar has raised the gonfalon of Santiago over the chapel roof."