English

A civic gonfalon.

Alternative forms

• gonfalone
• gonfanon

Noun

gonfalon ‎(plural gonfalons)

1. A standard or ensign, consisting of a pole with a crosspiece from which a banner is suspended, especially as used in church processions, but also for civic and military display.
   • 1667, John Milton, Paradise Lost, book 5, lines 588–590:

     Ten thousand thousand Ensignes high advanc'd,
     Standards, and Gonfalons twixt Van and Reare
     Streame in the Aire, and for distinction serve

   • 1910, July 12, Franklin Pierce Adams, poem “That Double Play Again” aka “Baseball's Sad Lexicon”, New York Evening Mail, page 6:

     Ruthlessly pricking our gonfalon bubble,
     Making a Giant hit into a double—
     Words that are heavy with nothing but trouble:
     “Tinker to Evers to Chance.”

   • 1922, Clark Ashton Smith, Quest:

     With vermilion leaf or bronze—
     Tatters of gorgeous gonfalons—

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