panache
stylish elegance
STATISTICS
IN THE PRESS
With Color and PANACHE, Afghans Fight a Different Kind of War
(New York Times article headline)
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The stylish way the two German clubs thrashed Barcelona and Real Madrid in the semi-finals seemed like a changing of regimes. Where the Spanish clubs once provided style and inevitable victory, the two German clubs triumphed with as much PANACHE.
(BBC News)
(New York Times article headline)
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The stylish way the two German clubs thrashed Barcelona and Real Madrid in the semi-finals seemed like a changing of regimes. Where the Spanish clubs once provided style and inevitable victory, the two German clubs triumphed with as much PANACHE.
(BBC News)
Did you
know?
panache
noun
- a stylish, original, and very confident way of doing things that makes people admire you
(Cambridge Dictionary)
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The word panache is a good example of how words make the transition from a literal to figurative meaning. The literal meaning traces back to the Latin pinnaculum – a small wing, gable or peak – by way of the Middle French pennache and Italian pennaccio, meaning a small bunch of feathers and ultimately from the Latin pinna (feather).
This led to several different uses in various fields including:
- architecture = the triangular surface of a vaulting between the rim of a dome and each adjacent pair of the arches that support it
- fashion = a plume as worn in a hat or helmet or in a woman's hair
- military = in medieval armour, a massive group of feathers set erect, often used as a heraldic bearing
- zoology = a tuft, bunch or cluster of hairs, feathers or fur
- astronomy = a tuft-like solar protuberance of eruption
The figurative sense of "display, swagger" was first recorded in 1898 in a translation of the French Cyrano de Bergerac.
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SYNONYMS
charisma, dash, elegance, flair, flamboyance, style, swagger, verve, vigour, élan
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SMUGGLE OWAD into today's conversation
"I really admire those rare people who possess natural panache."
noun
- a stylish, original, and very confident way of doing things that makes people admire you
(Cambridge Dictionary)
---
The word panache is a good example of how words make the transition from a literal to figurative meaning. The literal meaning traces back to the Latin pinnaculum – a small wing, gable or peak – by way of the Middle French pennache and Italian pennaccio, meaning a small bunch of feathers and ultimately from the Latin pinna (feather).
This led to several different uses in various fields including:
- architecture = the triangular surface of a vaulting between the rim of a dome and each adjacent pair of the arches that support it
- fashion = a plume as worn in a hat or helmet or in a woman's hair
- military = in medieval armour, a massive group of feathers set erect, often used as a heraldic bearing
- zoology = a tuft, bunch or cluster of hairs, feathers or fur
- astronomy = a tuft-like solar protuberance of eruption
The figurative sense of "display, swagger" was first recorded in 1898 in a translation of the French Cyrano de Bergerac.
---
SYNONYMS
charisma, dash, elegance, flair, flamboyance, style, swagger, verve, vigour, élan
---
SMUGGLE OWAD into today's conversation
"I really admire those rare people who possess natural panache."
