Obs. Also alfierez, -feeres, -ferez, -faras. [a. OSp. and Pg. alféres (mod. Sp. alférez) ensign, ad. Arab. al-fāris cavalier or knight, f. faras horse. Often made pl., with sing. alfere -a -o; cf. Fr. alfier, It. alfiere. (In later Sp. and It. also confused with alfir, see ALFIN, as name of the bishop in chess.)] An ensign, a standard-bearer.
1591. Garrard, Art Warre, 166. The Alfieres of everie Regiment.
1595. T. Maynard, Drake’s Voy. (1849), 10. Losinge my Alfierez Davis Pursell.
1598. Barret, Theor. Warres, II. i. 21. I have scene … the Alferes themselves to passe into other ranks to fight, leauing the Ensigne with the Abanderado.
1631. B. Jonson, New Inn, III. i. (N.). Jug here, his alfarez; An able officer.
1633. T. Stafford, Pac. Hib., xxiii. (1821), 431. With a sealed Letter to the Lord Deputie, by an Alfeeres. Ibid., xxi. 420. Two Captaines, 7 Alferoes.
c. 1640[?]. Embl. Parthen. Sodal., 49 (N.). The heliotropium, or sunflower, ‘is the true alferes, bearing up the standard of Flora.’
1679. in Howell’s State Trials (1816), VII. 347. There are no lieutenants in all the Flanders companies, only Captains and Alfara’s.
1708. Kersey, Alferes, an Ensign-bearer.
