Word: flag Part of Speech: noun Etymology: 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. Germanic cognates include Saterland Frisian Flaage (“flag”), West Frisian flagge (“flag”), Dutch vlag (“flag”), German Flagge (“flag”), Swedish flagga (“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. Pronunciation: /flæɡ/, /flaɡ/, /flaːɡ/, /flæːɡ/, /fleɪ̯ɡ/ 1. A piece of cloth, often decorated with an emblem, used as a visual signal or symbol. Labels: countable Example: The vote in the Bundestag (parliament) on Thursday makes defiling foreign flags equal to the crime of defiling the German flag. […] The new law also applies to acts of defilement besides burning, such as publicly ripping a flag up. 2. The design that could be placed on a flag, typically a rectangular graphic that is used to represent an entity (like a country, organisation or group of people) or an idea. Labels: countable, uncountable Example: The flag of France has three vertical stripes. 3. A flag flown by a ship to show the presence on board of the admiral; the admiral himself, or his flagship. Labels: countable, uncountable 4. A signal flag. Labels: attributive, countable, often, uncountable 5. The use of a flag, especially to indicate the start of a race or other event. Labels: countable, uncountable 6. A variable or memory location that stores a Boolean 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. Labels: countable, uncountable 7. In a command line interface, a command parameter requesting optional behavior or otherwise modifying the action of the command being invoked. Labels: countable, uncountable Example: This will be used as a help message if the user passes in the --help flag, like so: […] 8. A mechanical indicator that pops up to draw the pilot's attention to a problem or malfunction. Labels: countable, uncountable Example: I was shooting an IFR approach down the San Francisco slot, when all of a sudden the ILS flag popped up. Example: […] and then the OFF flag popped up and the needle went dead. 9. The game of capture the flag. Labels: UK, uncountable 10. 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. Labels: countable, uncountable Example: A flag of P is a sequence (F₀, F₁, ..., Fₘ) of faces of P such that dim Fᵢ = i for each i and Fᵢ is a side of Fᵢ₊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. Example: We call P (combinatorially) regular if its automorphism group Γ(P) is transitive on its flags. 11. 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. Labels: countable, uncountable 12. A dark piece of material that can be mounted on a stand to block or shape the light. Labels: countable, uncountable Example: 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. Example: Flags and other cutters allow the DP or gaffer to throw large controlled shadows on parts of the scene. 13. An apron. Labels: UK, archaic, countable, slang, uncountable Example: Suppose you try a different tack, / And on the square you flash your flag? 14. An indication that a certain outcome or event is going to happen, deduced not logically or causally, but as a pattern in a piece of media. Chiefly used in video games and adjacent media, especially visual novels, it is typically described as being raised or set by the plot or words of a character. Labels: Internet, countable, uncountable Example: set a death flag Example: raise the heroine's flags (in a galge) 15. A groat; fourpence. Labels: UK, countable, obsolete, slang, uncountable Example: […] the orator pulled out a tremendous black doll, bought for a ‘flag’ (fourpence) of a retired rag-merchant, and dressed up in Oriental style.