Definition of "panache" [pa•nache]

• Dash; verve. (noun)
• A bunch of feathers or a plume, especially on a helmet. (noun)

American Heritage(R) Dictionary of the English Language, Fifth Edition. Copyright (c) 2011 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. All rights reserved.

• "But what his style may have lacked in panache, it certainly made up in passion."
• "It was an expensive and strangely obscure institution, named for its syphilitic Whig founder, but we often called it, with what we considered a certain panache, the Mediocre University at New York City."
• "Above the helmet is a large plume of white feathers called a panache -- the origin of our modern word."