flag
Part of speech: noun
verb
Morphological type: simple
Topics: ACG
aeronautics
aerospace
aviation
biology
board-games
broadcasting
business
chess
computer
computing
engineering
firearms
games
geometry
government
hobbies
lifestyle
linear-algebra
mathematics
media
military
natural-sciences
nautical
physical-sciences
politics
science
sciences
sports
television
tools
transport
video-games
war
weaponry
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.
Inflected forms:
form: flags
pos: noun
tags: plural
form: flags
pos: verb
tags: present
singular
third-person
form: flagging
pos: verb
tags: participle
present
form: flagged
pos: verb
tags: participle
past
form: flagged
pos: verb
tags: past
Senses:
gloss: A piece of cloth, often decorated with an emblem, used as a visual signal or symbol.
pos: noun
tags: countable
examples: 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.
gloss: 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.
pos: noun
tags: countable
uncountable
examples: The flag of France has three vertical stripes.
gloss: A flag flown by a ship to show the presence on board of the admiral; the admiral himself, or his flagship.
pos: noun
tags: countable
uncountable
gloss: A signal flag.
pos: noun
tags: attributive
countable
often
uncountable
gloss: The use of a flag, especially to indicate the start of a race or other event.
pos: noun
tags: countable
uncountable
gloss: 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.
pos: noun
tags: countable
uncountable
gloss: In a command line interface, a command parameter requesting optional behavior or otherwise modifying the action of the command being invoked.
pos: noun
tags: countable
uncountable
examples: This will be used as a help message if the user passes in the --help flag, like so: […]
gloss: A mechanical indicator that pops up to draw the pilot's attention to a problem or malfunction.
pos: noun
tags: countable
uncountable
examples: I was shooting an IFR approach down the San Francisco slot, when all of a sudden the ILS flag popped up.
[…] and then the OFF flag popped up and the needle went dead.
gloss: The game of capture the flag.
pos: noun
tags: UK
uncountable
gloss: 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.
pos: noun
tags: countable
uncountable
examples: 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.
We call P (combinatorially) regular if its automorphism group Γ(P) is transitive on its flags.
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.
gloss: 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.
pos: noun
tags: countable
uncountable
gloss: A dark piece of material that can be mounted on a stand to block or shape the light.
pos: noun
tags: countable
uncountable
examples: 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.
Flags and other cutters allow the DP or gaffer to throw large controlled shadows on parts of the scene.
gloss: An apron.
pos: noun
tags: UK
archaic
countable
slang
uncountable
examples: Suppose you try a different tack, / And on the square you flash your flag?
gloss: 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.
pos: noun
tags: Internet
countable
uncountable
examples: set a death flag
raise the heroine's flags (in a galge)
gloss: A groat; fourpence.
pos: noun
tags: UK
countable
obsolete
slang
uncountable
examples: […] the orator pulled out a tremendous black doll, bought for a ‘flag’ (fourpence) of a retired rag-merchant, and dressed up in Oriental style.
gloss: To furnish or deck out with flags.
pos: verb
gloss: To mark with a flag, especially to indicate the importance of something.
pos: verb
examples: 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.
gloss: To signal to, especially to stop a passing vehicle etc.
pos: verb
tags: often
with-down
examples: Please flag down a taxi for me.
The electric locomotive is accompanied by a shunter who, in addition to his normal duties, flags the trains over the unprotected level crossings and opens the gates through which the line passes.
gloss: To convey (a message) by means of flag signals.
pos: verb
examples: to flag an order to troops or vessels at a distance
gloss: To note, mark or point out for attention.
pos: verb
tags: often
with-up
examples: I've flagged up the need for further investigation into this.
Users of the Internet forum can flag others' posts as inappropriate.
gloss: To signal (an event).
pos: verb
examples: The compiler flagged three errors.
gloss: To set a program variable to true.
pos: verb
examples: Flag the debug option before running the program.
gloss: To decoy (game) by waving a flag, handkerchief, etc. to arouse the animal's curiosity.
pos: verb
examples: 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.
gloss: To penalize for an infraction.
pos: verb
examples: The defender was flagged for unsportsmanlike conduct.
gloss: To lose on time, especially in a blitz game; when using a traditional analog chess clock, a flag would fall when time expired.
pos: verb
tags: intransitive
examples: 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.”
gloss: To defeat (an opponent) on time, especially in a blitz game.
pos: verb
tags: transitive
examples: White was winning positionally, but Black managed to flag him and win.
gloss: To point the muzzle of a firearm at a person or object one does not intend to fire on.
pos: verb
gloss: To fail, such as a class or an exam.
pos: verb
examples: After he flagged Algebra, Mike was ineligible for the football team.
gloss: In female canids, to signal mating readiness by moving the tail aside to expose the vulva.
pos: verb
examples: During estrus, most bitches will flirt with males by backing up to them, flagging their tails in the males’ faces, urinating frequently, and generally acting seductive.
She will avert her tail to the side (flagging), standing still when the male mounts.
Synonyms: option
dart
Related words: banner
colour
ensign
jack
pennant
standard
vexillology
Derived words: antiflag
apartheid flag
Apartheid flag
arse like a Japanese flag
ass like a Japanese flag
beflag
beige flag
bitflag
black flag
blue flag
buzzer flag
checkered flag
chequered flag
Confederate flag
cooper's flag
corner flag
corn-flag
courtesy flag
death flag
Dixie flag
dragon flag
emoji flag sequence
false flag
false-flag
flag anthem
flag bag
flagball
flag-bearer
flag bearer
flag-burning
flag cape
flag captain
flag carrier
flag cem
flag ceremony
flag complex
flag day
flag down
flagfall
flagfish
flag-flying
flag football
flaggable
flagger
flaggish
flag gun
flaggy
flag-happy
flaghopper
flag-hopping
flag leaf
flagless
flaglet
flag lieutenant
flaglike
flag list
flaglore
flag lot
flagmaker
flagmaking
flagman
flag manifold
flag meeting
flag of convenience
flag officer
flag on the play
flagperson
flag pole
flagpole
flagpost
flag rank
flagroot
flag rugby
flag-selling
flag semaphore
flag shagger
flagship
flag staff
flagstaff
flag-staff
flag state
flag station
flagstick
flag stop
flagtail
flag-to-flag
flag variety
flag-wagger
flag-waver
flag-waving
flagwoman
flagworm
fleg
fly the flag
fly the freak flag
freak flag
Gadsden flag
green flag
hashflag
hoist the white flag
Hoover flag
house flag
house-flag
human flag
Jewish flag
keep the flag flying
lay down one's flag
meatball flag
merchant flag
miniflag
municipal flag
national flag
orange flag
pilot flag
pink flag
pirate flag
prayer flag
pride flag
Progress Pride flag
put the flags out
quarantine flag
rainbow flag
raise a flag
raise the flag and see who salutes
raise the white flag
rally around the flag
rally round the flag
rebel flag
red flag
red flag day
red flag in front of a bull
red flag knowledge
red flag law
red flag to a bull
red flag warning
reflag
sand-flag
semaphore flag
show the flag
show the white flag
Siberian flag
Spanish flag
strike one's flag
strike the flag
sword-flag
top-flag
unflag
Van Dorn battle flag
water flag
wave the white flag
white-blue-white flag
white flag
wrap in the flag
flag up
yellow flag
flag away
Translations:
lang: Finnish
word: hävitä ajan loputtua
lang: Polish
word: przegrywać z powodu czasu
lang: Polish
word: przegrać z powodu czasu
lang: Russian
word: урони́ть флаг
roman: uronítʹ flag
lang: Finnish
word: voittaa ajan loputtua
lang: Polish
word: wygrywać z powodu czasu
lang: Polish
word: wygrać z powodu czasu
lang: Russian
word: сруби́ть флаг
roman: srubítʹ flag
lang: Russian
word: сби́ть флаг
roman: sbítʹ flag