heraldry Heraldry is a discipline relating to the design, display and study of armorial bearings (known as armory), as well as related disciplines, such as vexillology, together with the study of ceremony, rank and pedigree. Armory, the best-known branch ...

, a flaunch (; also called flanches or flanks) are among the ordinaries or subordinaries, consisting of two arcs of circles protruding into the

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from the sides of the shield. The flaunch is never borne singly. Plain flaunches are seen in the coats o
Hulbert Paul Lindahl Silver
an
Gillian Patricia Birtwhistle
They may be of different

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, as in the coat of the Free State Women’s Agricultural Union (South Africa) where they are orange/tenny and azure. Flaunches may touch each other, as in the coat o
Bradley Hook
Like any ordinary, they may * be charged with other things, as in the English coats o

an

* have colourings other than plain ones, as in the English coat o

and the Canadian one of th
Central Saanich (British Columbia) Police Service
* have ornamented edges, as in the Welsh coat o

A very rare variation is ''square'' flaunches, as in the coat o
Sheila-Marie Suzanne Cook
and the coat of the US Coastguard Cutte
''Sequoia''
Parker's glossary, s.v

cites two similar coats for Mosylton or Moselton with square flaunches.

Diminutive

While supposedly the diminutives of flaunches are ''flasques'' and ''voiders'' (which likewise cannot be borne singly), these exist only very rarely in modern heraldry, and in practice cannot be distinguished from flaunches. An example occurs in the coat of Liddell-Grainger of Ayton (second quarter for Liddell), "Argent fretty gules; two voiders or;..." (Scots Public Register, volume 38, page 3).

As a debruisement

Some early heraldic writers say that the illegitimate son of a noblewoman must bear her arms with "a surcoat"; that is, on (large) flaunches around a blank center.

References

{{heraldry-stub Heraldic ordinaries