pheon
(ˈfiːɒn)
Also 5 feon.
[Origin unknown.
Identity has been suggested with OF. foine, foene, mod.F. fouine, a pitchfork, or trident for catching fish, etc., the regular Eng. repr. of which is foin; but the pheon is never a fork, and the fouine is not essentially barbed.]
1. Her. ‘A charge representing a broad barbed arrow, or head of a javelin’ (Fairholt). Either identical with the figure called the broad arrow, or differing only in being engrailed on the inner edge.
| 1486 Bk. St. Albans, Her. B v, Feons be calde in armys brode arow hedys. 1562 Leigh Armorie 175 A Pheon Azure, whiche signifieth the hedd of a Darte. 1610 J. Guillim Heraldry iv. xiv. (1611) 228 The pheon is the head of an instrument of the missile sort which we call a dart. 1864 Boutell Her. Hist. & Pop. ix. 49 Unless the contrary be specified, the point of the Pheon is blazoned to the base. |
2. As the name of an actual weapon: see quots.
| a 1618 Sylvester Job Triumph. iv. 599 Canst thou his Skin with barbed pheons pierce? [1860 Fairholt Costume in Eng. (ed. 2) Gloss., Pheon, a barbed javelin, carried by sergeants-at-arms in the king's presence as early as Richard I's time.] |