Definitions

from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 5th Edition.

  • noun A narrow flag, streamer, or pennon, especially one carried at the top of a lance or spear.

from The Century Dictionary.

  • noun An obsolete form of pencil.
  • noun A small pennon or streamer attached to a staff, spear, or lance.

from the GNU version of the Collaborative International Dictionary of English.

  • noun obsolete A small, narrow flag or streamer borne at the top of a lance; -- called also pennoncel.

Etymologies

from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 4th Edition

[Middle English, from Old French penoncel, diminutive of penon, pennon; see pennon.]

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License

From Anglo-Norman pencel, reduced form of penuncel.

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Examples

  • And thats when the point on his pencel broke and then we got up and went out.

    Flowers for Algernon Keyes, Daniel 1966

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