AFGLNNOO

Word of the Week

A feature wherein TileHead highlights a word that is is especially interesting or unusual (and, incidentally, useful in Scrabble play):

AFGLNNOO

(unscramble the letters to form this week's word...)

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(answer below, after a little more spoiler space....)

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This week's word is...

GONFALON (n. pl. -S)

• Definition: a banner or flag, especially as a standard for a military or ecclesiastical procession

• Front hooks: (none)
• Back hooks: -S
• Anagrams: (none)
• Longer extensions: (none)
• Wraparounds: (none)
• Other Spellings: GONFANON (n. pl. -S)
• Related Forms: (none)

TileHead says:

In the Middle Ages, a GONFANON was the small flag or banner attached to the head of a knight's lance or spear, or later any such banner serving as a military or ecclesiastical standard.  The word stems from Old Germanic gundfano, "battle banner," and similar forms exist in many languages.  Later French and Italian forms of the word gave English the now-more-common spelling of GONFALON.

The word also appears in a famous baseball poem:

These are the saddest of possible words:
"Tinker to Evers to Chance."
Trio of bear cubs, and fleeter than birds,
Tinker and Evers and Chance.
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."
– Franklin Pierce Adams, "Baseball's
   Sad Lexicon" (1910)

In the poem, "gonfalon" is used to mean the league championship banner, as in the "National League pennant."  The poem immortalized Chicago Cubs infielders (and eventual Hall of Famers) Joe Tinker, Johnny Evers, and Frank Chance, who played together for several years, during a time when the Cubs were regularly among baseball's best teams.  (More than just the language has changed since then.)