one of the honourable ordinaries.—See Heraldry, p. 452, and Plate CCXXX.

This, says G. Leigh, in his Accedence of Arms, p. 78, was anciently made of the height of a man, and driven full of pins, the use of which was to scale walls, &c. Upton says it was an instrument to catch wild beasts, whence he derives this word from falsus, i.e. "a foreshortening." The French call this ordinary fauteuil, from fauteuil "to leap;" because it may have been used by soldiers to leap over walls of towns, which in former times were but low; but some modern authors think it is borne in imitation of St Andrew's cross.