pavons

Noun

pavon (plural pavons)

1. A small triangular flag, especially one attached to a knight's lance; a pennon.
   • High silken pavilions or colored marquees, shooting up from among the crowd of meaner dwellings, marked where the great lords and barons of Leon and Castile displayed their standards, while over the white roofs, as far as eye could reach, the waving of ancients, pavons, pensils, and banderoles...1890, Arthur Conan Doyle, The White Company, page 325
2. The peacock bass
   • A pavon on every cast and my hands were raw from grabbing their jaws.1972 May, A.J. McClane, “Amazon......wonder World of Fishes”, in Field & Stream, volume 77, number 1, page 100
3. (South-America) Any of various birds with ornate plumage, similar to a peacock.
   • To console our bereavement somewhat, she sent down to the galliota a pair of young, noisy, half-fledged parrots, and a pavon or sun-bird .1855, William Henry Edwards, A Voyage Up the River Amazon, Including a Residence at Pará, page 171
4. A tropical butterfly, Doxocopa pavon, noted for the iridescent purple coloration of the male.
   • The Pavon is yet another tropical member of the huge Brush-footed Butterfly family that just barely enters the United States, in southeast Texas, and even there only rarely.2002, Lisa Bonforte, Jan Sovak, Paul E. Kennedy, Color and Learn Birds, Butterflies and Wild Flowers, page 89
5. A subtropical plant of genus Peperomia.
   • The Pavon plant , which appears to be similar to Mandon No. 1123 , has no ripe fruits , but was probably the plant on which the original description was based , for Pentland's plant is without doubt a specimen of P. peruviana, Dahlst1907, Isaac Bayley Balfour, Roland Thaxter, Vernon Herbert Blackman, Annals of Botany - Volume 21, page 140
6. A hydrochloride of opium alkaloid, similar to Pantopon, used as a pain medication.
   • This indicates that pavon is a diluted pantopon, a pavon tablet is equivalent to half a pantopon tablet , and an ampule of pavon to half a ampule of pantopon .1922, International Medical and Surgical Survey, page 468

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