passant
adj/ˈpæsənt/ · /pəˈsɑnt/
Etymology From Middle English passaunt (c. 1300), from Old French passant.
1
Government, Heraldry, Hobbies, Lifestyle, Monarchy, Nobility, Politics Of a four-legged animal Walking, usually to the right, and looking straight ahead with the right forepaw raised from the ground.
- He them espying, gan himselfe prepare, / And on his arme addresse his goodly shield / That bore a Lion passant in a golden field.1590, Edmund Spenser, “Book III, Canto I”, in The Faerie Queene. […], London: […] [John Wolfe] for William Ponsonbie, →OCLC:
- The official blazon of the arms of Perth is "Gules, a Holy Lambe passant regardant staff and cross argent, with the banner of St. Andrew proper, all within a double tressure counter-flowered of the second": […].1956 July, Col. H. C. B. Rogers, “Railway Heraldry”, in Railway Magazine, page 480:
2
Obsolete Currently in use; in vogue.
- Many opinions are passant concerning the basilisk, or little king of serpents, commonly called the cockatrice [...].1646, Sir Thomas Browne, Pseudodoxia Epidemica, III.7:
- Derived terms
- counterpassant
- Related terms
- en passant