vane

Note: In the sense "banner, flag" Old English fana, Old Saxon fano, etc., are probably shortenings of Old English gūþfana, Old Saxon gūthfano, etc., "battle standard, banner"—see gonfalon. —The Germanic and Latin etyma have also been associated with Greek pḗnē "thread on the spool or bobbin that will form the weft" (also pēníon, Doric pāníon "spool, bobbin," and pênos, glossed "web" by Hesychius), though the senses appear too remote to be comparable. G. Kroonen suggests that the forms might be unified by positing an original ablauting n-stem *p(é)h₂-ōn, genitive *ph₂-n-ós, with the Germanic word being the outcome of a generalized stem *ph₂-no- or *peh₂-nó-, with shortening by Dybo's Law (shortening of long vowels before an accented syllable beginning with a resonant). Latin pannum could be relatable if it was the outcome of the littera-rule (V:C > VCC). A problem here, however, is that there appear to be no other cases of the littera-rule operating in Latin before a nasal consonant—and, in any case, there are no examples of *pānus. Germanic *fanōn and Latin pannus are perhaps to be considered loanwords from an unknown source.