flag definition

English flag definition

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Pronunciation

• (UK, US) IPA^(key): /flæɡ/
• (North American also) IPA^(key): /fleɪɡ/

• Audio (US)

  (file)

• Rhymes: -æɡ, -eɪɡ

Etymology 1

From Middle English flag, flagge (“flag”), further etymology uncertain. Perhaps from or related to early Middle English flage (name for a baby's garment) and Old English flagg, flacg (“cataplasm, poultice, plaster”). Or, perhaps ultimately imitative, or otherwise drawn from Proto-Germanic *flaką (“something flat”), from Proto-Indo-European *pleh₂- (“flat, broad, plain”), referring to the shape.^[1]

Germanic cognates include Saterland Frisian Flaage (“flag”), West Frisian flagge (“flag”), Dutch vlag (“flag”), German Flagge (“flag”), Swedish flagg (“flag”), Danish flag (“flag, ship's flag”). Compare also Middle English flacken (“to flutter, palpitate”), Swedish dialectal flage (“to flutter in the wind”), Old Norse flögra (“to flap about”). Akin to Old High German flogarōn (“to flutter”), Old High German flogezen (“to flutter, flicker”), Middle English flakeren (“to move quickly to and fro”), Old English flacor (“fluttering, flying”). More at flack, flacker.

Noun

flag (countable and uncountable, plural flags)

1. A piece of cloth, often decorated with an emblem, used as a visual signal or symbol.
2. An exact representation of a flag (for example: a digital one used in websites).
3. (nautical) A flag flown by a ship to show the presence on board of the admiral; the admiral himself, or his flagship.
4. (nautical, often used attributively) A signal flag.
5. The use of a flag, especially to indicate the start of a race or other event.
6. (computer science) A variable or memory location that stores a true-or-false, yes-or-no value, typically either recording the fact that a certain event has occurred or requesting that a certain optional action take place.
7. (computer science) In a command line interface, a command parameter requesting optional behavior or otherwise modifying the action of the command being invoked.
   • 2021, Angel Sola Orbaiceta, Hardcore Programming for Mechanical Engineers (page 19-2)

     This will be used as a help message if the user passes in the --help flag, like so: […]

8. (aviation) A mechanical indicator that pops up to draw the pilot's attention to a problem or malfunction.
   • 1966, Barry J. Schiff, All about Flying: An Introduction to the World of Flying (page 72)

     I was shooting an IFR approach down the San Francisco slot, when all of a sudden the ILS flag popped up.

   • 1980, Paul Garrison, Flying VFR in marginal weather (page 139)

     […] and then the OFF flag popped up and the needle went dead.

9. (Britain, uncountable) The game of capture the flag.
10. (geometry) A sequence of faces of a given polytope, one of each dimension up to that of the polytope (formally, though in practice not always explicitly, including the null face and the polytope itself), such that each face in the sequence is part of the next-higher dimension face.
    • 1994, John Ratcliffe, Foundations of Hyperbolic Manifolds‎^[1], page 230:

      A flag of P is a sequence (F₀, F₁, ..., F_m) of faces of P such that dim F_i = i for each i and F_i is a side of F_i+1 for each i < m. […] A regular polytope in X is a polytope P in X whose group of symmetries in <P> acts transitively on its flags.

    • 2002, Peter McMullen, Egon Schulte, Abstract Regular Polytopes, Encyclopedia of Mathematics and Its Applications 92, page 31,

      We call P (combinatorially) regular if its automorphism group Γ(P) is transitive on its flags.

    • 2006, Peter McMullen, Egon Schulte, Regular and Chiral Polytopes in Low Dimensions, Harold Scott Macdonald Coxeter, Chandler Davis, Erich W. Ellers (editors), The Coxeter Legacy: Reflections and Projections, page 91,

      Roughly speaking, chiral polytopes have half as many possible automorphisms as have regular polytopes. More technically, the n-polytope P is chiral if it has two orbits of flags under its group Γ(P), with adjacent flags in different orbits.

11. (mathematics, linear algebra) A sequence of subspaces of a vector space, beginning with the null space and ending with the vector space itself, such that each member of the sequence (until the last) is a proper subspace of the next.
12. (television) A dark piece of material that can be mounted on a stand to block or shape the light.
    • 1999, Des Lyver, ‎Graham Swainson, Basics of Video Lighting (page 103)

      At the other extreme, with limitless budgets all they have to do is dream up amazing lighting rigs to be constructed and operated by the huge team of gaffers and sparks, with their generators, discharge lights, flags, gobos and brutes.

    • 2012, John Jackman, Lighting for Digital Video and Television (page 86)

      Flags and other cutters allow the DP or gaffer to throw large controlled shadows on parts of the scene.

13. (UK, archaic, slang) An apron.
    • 1887, William Ernest Henley, Villon's Straight Tip to All Cross Coves

      Suppose you try a different tack, / And on the square you flash your flag?

14. (Internet slang, ACG) A plot or words of a character in an animation, etc., that would usually lead to a specific outcome or event, not logically or causally, but as a pattern of the animation, etc.

    death flag

    raise the heroine's flags (in a galge)

Synonyms

• (computer science: true-or-false value): Boolean
• (computer science: CLI notation): switch, option
• (geometry: sequence of faces of a polytope): dart

Holonyms

• (piece of cloth): bunting

Derived terms

Translations

Verb

flag (third-person singular simple present flags, present participle flagging, simple past and past participle flagged)

1. To furnish or deck out with flags.
2. To mark with a flag, especially to indicate the importance of something.
   • 2011 January 8, Chris Bevan, “Arsenal 1 - 1 Leeds”, in BBC‎^[2]:

     Walcott was, briefly, awarded a penalty when he was upended in the box but referee Phil Dowd reversed his decision because Bendtner had been flagged offside.

3. (often with down) To signal to, especially to stop a passing vehicle etc.

   Please flag down a taxi for me.

4. To convey (a message) by means of flag signals.

   to flag an order to troops or vessels at a distance

5. (often with up) To note, mark or point out for attention.

   I've flagged up the need for further investigation into this.

   Users of the Internet forum can flag others' posts as inappropriate.

6. (computing) To signal (an event).

   The compiler flagged three errors.

7. (computing) To set a program variable to true.

   Flag the debug option before running the program.

8. To decoy (game) by waving a flag, handkerchief, etc. to arouse the animal's curiosity.
   • 1885, Theodore Roosevelt, Hunting Trips of a Ranchman

     This method of hunting, however, is not so much practised now as formerly, as the antelope are getting continually shyer and more difficult to flag.

9. (sports) To penalize for an infraction.

   The defender was flagged for unsportsmanlike conduct.

10. (chess, intransitive) To lose on time, especially in a blitz game; when using a traditional analog chess clock, a flag would fall when time expired.
    • Mark Dvoretsky (2014) For Friends & Colleagues, volume 1, →ISBN: “Indeed, I usually spent an hour to an hour and a half on my game, never found myself in time pressure, never once flagged in my entire life, except in blitz games, of course.”
11. (chess, transitive) To defeat (an opponent) on time, especially in a blitz game.

    White was winning positionally, but Black managed to flag him and win.

12. (firearms) To point the muzzle of a firearm at a person or object one does not intend to fire on.
13. To fail, such as a class or an exam.

    After he flagged Algebra, Mike was ineligible for the football team.

Translations

See also

Etymology 2

Perhaps from a variant of flack (“to hang loose”), from Middle English flacken; or perhaps from Old Norse.^[1] Compare Middle Dutch flaggheren, vlaggheren (“to droop, flag”).

Verb

flag (third-person singular simple present flags, present participle flagging, simple past and past participle flagged)

1. (intransitive) To weaken, become feeble.

   His strength flagged toward the end of the race.

   • 1724, Jonathan Swift, Drapier's Letters, 2

     He now sees a spirit has been raised against him, and he only watches till it begin to flag.

   • 2012 December 29, Paul Doyle, “Arsenal's Theo Walcott hits hat-trick in thrilling victory over Newcastle”, in The Guardian‎^[3]:

     The sides took it in turns to err and excite before Newcastle flagged and Arsenal signalled their top-four credentials by blowing the visitors away.

2. To hang loose without stiffness; to bend down, as flexible bodies; to be loose, yielding, limp.
   • 1817, Thomas Moore, Lalla-Rookh

     as loose it [the sail] flagged around the mast

3. To let droop; to suffer to fall, or let fall, into feebleness.
   • 1709, Mat[thew] Prior, “An Ode”, in Poems on Several Occasions, 2nd edition, London: […] Jacob Tonson […], OCLC 1103119849:

     The Thousand Loves , that arm thy potent Eye , Must drop their Quivers , flag their Wings

4. To enervate; to exhaust the vigour or elasticity of.
   • 1670, John Eachard, The Ground and Occasions of the Contempt of the Clergy:

     there is nothing that flags the Spirits, disorders the Blood, and enfeebles the whole Body of Man, as intense Studies.

Translations

Etymology 3

Of uncertain origin, perhaps from North Germanic; compare Danish flæg (“yellow iris”). Or, possibly from sense 1, referring to its motion in the wind. Compare also Dutch vlag.

Noun

flag (plural flags)

1. Any of various plants with sword-shaped leaves, especially irises; specifically, Iris pseudacorus.
   • c. 1606–1607, William Shakespeare, “The Tragedie of Anthonie and Cleopatra”, in Mr. William Shakespeares Comedies, Histories, & Tragedies […] (First Folio), London: […] Isaac Iaggard, and Ed[ward] Blount, published 1623, OCLC 606515358, [Act I, scene iii]:

     [T]he ebbed man, ne'er loved till ne'er worth love,
     Comes deared by being lacked. This common body,
     Like to a vagabond flag upon the stream,
     Goes to and back, lackeying the varying tide,
     To rot itself with motion.

   • 1611, The Holy Bible, […] (King James Version), London: […] Robert Barker, […], OCLC 964384981, Job 8:11:

     Can the rush grow up without mire? can the flag grow without water?

   • before 1899, Robert Seymour Bridges, There is a Hill:

     And laden barges float

     By banks of myosote;

     And scented flag and golden flower-de-lys

     Delay the loitering boat.

Derived terms

• sweet flag

Translations

Etymology 4

Probably of Scandinavian/North Germanic origin; compare Icelandic flag.

Noun

flag (plural flags)

1. (obsolete except in dialects) A slice of turf; a sod.
2. A slab of stone; a flagstone, a flat piece of stone used for paving.
3. (geology) Any hard, evenly stratified sandstone, which splits into layers suitable for flagstones.

Translations

Verb

flag (third-person singular simple present flags, present participle flagging, simple past and past participle flagged)

1. (transitive) To pave with flagstones.

   Fred is planning to flag his patio this weekend.

Translations

Etymology 5

Noun

flag (plural flags)

1. A group of feathers on the lower part of the legs of certain hawks, owls, etc.
2. A group of elongated wing feathers in certain hawks.
3. The bushy tail of a dog such as a setter.
4. (music) A hook attached to the stem of a written note that assigns its rhythmic value

References

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Chinese flag definition

Etymology

Borrowed from Japanese フラグ, from English flag.

Noun

flag

1. (Internet slang, ACG) flag

   死亡flag  ―  sǐwáng flag  ―  the words of a character which, as a pattern, usually precede the character's death

2. goal; resolution; statement of intent

   新年flag  ―  xīnnián flag  ―  New Year resolutions

   立flag  ―  lì flag  ―  to set up a goal

   他的flag倒了。  ―  Tāde flag dǎole.  ―  He didn't achieve the goal.

   • 很多同學立了flag要好好備考，然而好的學習方法能起到事半功倍的效果。 [MSC, trad.]
     很多同学立了flag要好好备考，然而好的学习方法能起到事半功倍的效果。 [MSC, simp.]

     From: 2020 April 11, "雅思中国网" (username), Weibo post

     Hěnduō tóngxué lìle flag yào hǎohǎo bèikǎo, rán'ér hǎode xuéxí fāngfǎ néng qǐdào shìbàngōngbèi de xiàoguǒ. [Pinyin]

     Many students stated there resolution to study hard for the test, and a good way to study can yield twice the result with half the effort.

   • “這輩子不打工”的flag就先擱置吧。 [MSC, trad.]
     “这辈子不打工”的flag就先搁置吧。 [MSC, simp.]

     From: 2020 April 11, The Beijing News, “Internet Celebrity Thief to be Released: Put Aside For Now the Resolution to "Not Get Employed Forever"”

     “zhè bèizǐ bù dǎgōng” de flag jiù xiān gēzhì ba. [Pinyin]

     Put aside for now the resolution to "not get employed forever".

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Danish flag definition

Etymology

From Dutch or English flag.

Noun

flag n (singular definite flaget, plural indefinite flag)

1. flag (cloth)
2. flag (true-false variable)

Inflection

Verb

flag

1. imperative of flage

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Dutch flag definition

Etymology

Borrowed from English flag.

Pronunciation

• (Netherlands) IPA^(key): /flɛɡ/
• Hyphenation: flag

Noun

flag m (plural flags, diminutive flagje n)

1. (computing) flag

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Icelandic flag definition

Etymology

From Old Norse flag, flaga, probably from Proto-Germanic *flaką (“something flat”), from Proto-Indo-European *pleh₂- (“flat, broad, plain”). However, compare Proto-Germanic *plaggą.^[1]

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): /flaːɣ/
• Rhymes: -aːɣ

Noun

flag n (genitive singular flags, nominative plural flög)

1. area of ground stripped of turf

Declension

Related terms

• flaga

References

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Portuguese flag definition

Etymology

Unadapted borrowing from English flag.

Noun

flag m or f (in variation) (plural flags)

1. (programming) flag (true-or-false variable)

   Synonym: booleano