flag
Pluralflags
Pluralflags
- 1A piece of cloth bearing a distinctive design or emblem, or the design itself, displayed as the symbol of a country or group or used to send a signal.
A single flag flew at half-mast over the building.
Soldiers carried their regimental flags into the ceremony.
UsageA flag flies, or people raise, lower or fly it; in mourning it flies at half-mast.
- 2To note, mark, or point something out so that it receives attention.
Please flag any errors you find in the report.
The editor flagged several sentences for revision.
UsageTo flag up an issue (chiefly British) is to raise it with others; plain flag also marks single items, as in flag a post.
- 3To mark something with a flag, especially to show that it is important.
Surveyors flag the corners of the lot before construction begins.
They flagged the dangerous curve so drivers would slow down.
Similarmark, stake, tag, label
Note
In football reports the sense narrows to the offside call: a player is flagged offside when an official raises a flag. Here the flag is literal, which separates this use from the figurative noting, where nothing is waved at all.
Checked 2 Nov 2026 · 1 fact
- An official signals offside in association football by raising a literal flag. en.wikipedia.org
- 4To signal to someone or something, especially to make a passing vehicle stop.
She tried to flag a taxi in the pouring rain.
He flagged down the bus just before it pulled away.
UsageTo stop a vehicle, most often flag down a taxi, bus or car; plain flag can also mean waving one on.
Similarhail, signal, wave, stop
Note
The hailing sense usually takes down: you flag down a taxi, a bus or a passing car. Without down, it can mean directing a vehicle on its way rather than stopping it. H. R. Stones, writing in Railway Magazine in 1957, describes a shunter who flags trains over unprotected level crossings.
Checked 2 Nov 2026 · 2 facts
- H. R. Stones wrote about the railway in Railway Magazine in 1957. en.wikipedia.org
- Stones describes a shunter who flags trains over unprotected level crossings. en.wiktionary.org
- 5Signaling with a flag, most often to set a race or similar event in motion.
At the flag, all the runners shot forward off the line.
The cyclists waited on the line and set off at the flag.
Similarstart (entry), signal
- 6To grow weak or feeble; to lose strength or energy.
By the third mile, the runners began to flag.
Her enthusiasm flagged as the meeting dragged on.
UsageSubjects are usually energy, interest, spirit or a tired person, often in begin to flag or was flagging.
Similartire, weaken, wane, fade, wilt
Oppositerevive, rally, strengthen, recover
Note
Jonathan Swift's Drapier's Letters (1724) waits for a spirit to begin to flag. Railway Magazine in 1950 has an engine, low on steam, whose speed was flagging badly, a progressive form that sits naturally with this sense.
- 7In computing, a value that is either on or off, used to record that something has happened, or an option given to a program or command to turn on extra behavior.
The parser raises a flag whenever it encounters malformed input.
Several status flags track whether each subsystem has initialized.
UsagePrograms set or raise a flag.
Note
Programmers borrowed the signal and kept only its two states: up or down, true or false. A flag does one of two jobs. It either records that something has already happened, or it asks for an optional action to be taken.
Checked 2 Nov 2026 · 1 fact
- A Boolean computing flag represents two states, true or false. en.wikipedia.org
- 8To mark or signal, for example by setting a variable to true, that an event or condition has occurred.
Sensors flag a temperature spike the moment it occurs.
The software flagged the anomaly during the overnight run.
Note
Software takes over the human act of pointing out: a compiler flags three errors, and a sensor flags a temperature spike. The subject is usually a program or a device, and the object is the problem it reports. That separates this use from setting a variable, where the thing flagged is the program's own internal record.
- 9Aboard a warship, the banner showing that an admiral is present; by extension, the admiral or the admiral's ship.
The flag broke out at the masthead the moment the admiral stepped aboard.
Captains dipped their colors as the flag passed, honoring the admiral it represented.
Note
Naval speech lets the banner stand for the person it announces. The flag shows that the admiral is aboard. From there the word names the admiral himself, and also the ship carrying him. That ship is the flagship, the compound that keeps this sense alive. So orders can come from the flag, and the flag can be pleased or displeased.
Checked 31 Oct 2026 · 4 facts
- The admiral's distinguishing flag identifies his presence aboard ship. gutenberg.org
- The banner's name can stand for the admiral. gutenberg.org
- The ship bearing the admiral's flag is called the flagship. gutenberg.org
- Flagship is a compound containing flag in its naval sense. en.wiktionary.org
Less common meanings
- 10
- 11To hang down loosely and limply, bending or drooping the way a flexible thing does rather than staying stiff.
The ferns flagged as the drought wore on, their fronds bending toward the ground.
Cut stems flag within hours unless you put them in water.
Oppositerevive
Note
The physical droop behind the sense of growing weak: a stem, a fern or a sail hanging limp instead of holding its shape. Thomas Moore's Lalla Rookh (1817) has a loose sail that flagged around the mast. That makes a neat collision with the banner, since a slack sail moves like cloth on a pole, though the two are treated as separate words.
Checked 31 Oct 2026 · 2 facts
- Thomas Moore wrote Lalla Rookh, first published in 1817. en.wikisource.org
- Lalla Rookh describes a loose sail flagging around the mast. en.wikisource.org
- 12
- 13A flat slab of stone used for paving, such as a path or floor; a flagstone.
Each flag in the courtyard was cut from local stone.
Workers laid the flags one by one along the garden path.
UsageThe fuller word flagstone is clearer and avoids confusion with the banner.
Note
In the plural it can mean a stone floor as a whole. The AA Book of British Villages (1980) has farmers' dogs lying in heaps on the flags while their owners drink ale.
Checked 2 Nov 2026 · 1 fact
- The book describes farmers' dogs lying in heaps on the flags while the farmers drink ale. en.wiktionary.org
- 14To pave a surface with flagstones, the flat slabs of stone.
Masons flagged the terrace with wide slabs of local sandstone.
The council voted to flag the market square rather than asphalt it.
Similarpave
- 15Any of various plants with sword-shaped leaves, especially irises, and in particular the yellow iris, Iris pseudacorus.
Clumps of flag spread across the marshy bank each spring.
The yellow flag thrives in shallow water and damp soil.
Similariris
Note
Older literature knows it well. The King James Bible of 1611 asks, "can the flag grow without water?", and Shakespeare's Antony and Cleopatra pictures a vagabond flag drifting on a stream.
Checked 2 Nov 2026 · 3 facts
- The King James Bible was first published in 1611. bridwell.omeka.net
- The quoted question occurs in the King James Bible, in Job 8:11; the speaker is Bildad. en.wikisource.org
- William Shakespeare's Antony and Cleopatra contains the image of a vagabond flag moving on a stream; Caesar speaks the lines. folger-main-site-assets.s3.amazonaws.com
- 16In music, a hook attached to the stem of a written note that sets its rhythmic value.
A single flag on the stem marks the note as an eighth note.
When notes are joined, their flags become beams connecting the stems.
Note
Notation's shorthand for speed: each flag added to a stem halves the note's value, so one flag marks an eighth note and two mark a sixteenth. When several short notes stand side by side, beams joining their stems usually replace the separate flags. The rhythm is the same either way, and flagged and beamed notes are read identically.
Checked 31 Oct 2026 · 4 facts
- Each additional flag halves a note's rhythmic value. open.edu
- One flag indicates an eighth note and two indicate a sixteenth note. dolmetsch.com
- Adjacent short notes are commonly connected by beams replacing their flags. openbooks.macewan.ca
- Equivalent flagged and beamed notation represents the same rhythm. open.edu
- 17The team game of capture the flag, in which two sides try to seize each other's flag and carry it home.
- 18To furnish or decorate something with flags.
- 19To fail something, such as a class or an exam.
- 20A mechanical indicator that pops up to alert the pilot to a problem or malfunction.
- 21To let a gun's muzzle point at a person or thing one has no intention of shooting.
- 22A dark piece of material mounted on a stand to block or shape light, used on film and television sets.
- 23In video games and visual novels, a sign that a particular outcome will occur, recognized as a story pattern rather than logic, typically raised by the plot or a character's words.
- 24In chess, to lose a game by running out of time on the clock, or to beat an opponent by making them run out of time, especially in blitz.
- 25The long, bushy tail of a dog, especially a setter or a similar breed.
- 26A chain of faces of a polytope, one of every dimension, in which each face is contained in the next larger one.
- 27A nested chain of subspaces within a vector space, running from the zero space up to the whole space, where each one sits strictly inside the next.
- 28A garment tied around the waist to protect the front of one's clothes.
Suppose you try a different tack, / And on the square you flash your flag?
1887, William Ernest Henley, Villon's Straight Tip to All Cross Coves - 29To lure game animals closer by waving a cloth or banner that makes them curious.
- 30Of a female dog, wolf, or fox, to move the tail to one side to show she is ready to mate.
- 31To let something hang down limply, or allow it to grow weak.
- 32To drain the strength or springiness out of something and leave it worn out.
- 33A piece of grass cut from the ground together with its roots and soil.
- 34A tough sandstone laid down in even beds, which splits cleanly into slabs for paving.
- 35Long feathering that covers the shanks of certain birds of prey, such as some owls and hawks.
- 36Extra-long feathers grouped together on the wings of some hawks.
Showing meanings only.
Practice
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Origins
Middle English used the forms flag and flagge, whose earlier history is uncertain. They may be connected with early Middle English flage (a baby's garment) and Old English flagg (a poultice or plaster). Other proposals suggest an imitative origin or trace the word through Proto-Germanic *flaką ("something flat") to Proto-Indo-European *pleh₂- ("flat, broad, plain"), with reference to its shape. Related Germanic words include Dutch vlag, German Flagge, Swedish flagga and Danish flag.
Middle Dutch flaggheren, vlaggheren ("to droop, flag") is a comparable word. The English verb may grow out of a variant form of flack ("to hang loose"), a word that goes back to Middle English flacken, or it may instead have an Old Norse source.
The plant name goes back to Middle English flagge, whose source is uncertain. It may be North Germanic, as Danish flæg ("yellow iris") suggests, or it may come from flag in its first sense, after its motion in the wind. Dutch vlag is also comparable.
Probably Scandinavian or North Germanic in origin, the word came into English as Middle English flag or flagge. Compare Icelandic flag.