flagged

1. 1
   verb

   Simple past and past participle of flag.

   The auditor flagged several transactions for closer review.

   Reviewers had flagged the post before it was taken down.

   Note

   One spelling does the work of both past forms, with the final g doubled before -ed: she flagged the error, and the error has been flagged. The verb often takes a particle. Flagged down is used when a vehicle is hailed to a stop, and flagged up when something is pointed out for attention. With neither particle, it can simply mean marked with a flag or decked out in flags.

   She stepped off the curb and flagged down a passing taxi.

   The report flagged up three risks the board had overlooked.

2. 2
   adjective

   Marked with a flag or marker, often to draw attention or indicate a particular status.

   The flagged files were the ones the auditor wanted to see first.

   Comments that were flagged stayed hidden until a moderator reviewed them.

   Similarmarked, tagged, highlighted

   Oppositeunmarked, unflagged

3. 3
   adjective

   Registered with a particular country and therefore flying that nation's flag.

   A Panamanian-flagged freighter waited just outside territorial waters.

   The vessel is flagged in Malta but owned by a Greek company.

   Similarregistered

4. 4
   adjective

   Paved with flagstones: flat, fitted slabs of stone laid as a surface.

   Rain pooled in the worn hollows of the flagged terrace.

   The hallway was flagged with broad gray slabs that echoed underfoot.

   Similarpaved

   Oppositeunpaved

   Note

   A different flag stands behind this sense: not the cloth of the "marked with a flag" meaning but flag as a word for a flat paving stone, so a flagged floor has nothing to do with banners. It settles on courts, floors and terraces, as in Eddison's flagged court in The Worm Ouroboros (1922) or Peake's flagged floor in Gormenghast (1950). A surface either is flagged or is not; nothing is more flagged than another.

5. 5
   adjective

   Of bristles, having split, bushy ends rather than blunt single tips.

   The flagged bristles released paint evenly across the wall.

   Toward the ends, each hair was flagged into several fine strands.

   Similarsplit, frayed

   Oppositeblunt

   Note

   A third, unrelated flag lies behind this one. Like the flagstone sense, it has nothing to do with banners. It comes from the word for the leg feathers of certain birds and a dog's bushy tail, so the picture is a tuft. In brushes, flagged tips are split into fine strands, which gives more surface for picking up and releasing paint than a blunt bristle has.

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