flag

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

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• Rhymes: -æɡ, -eɪɡ

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”). Related to 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.

A flag, namely of the Cretan Republic

flag (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. (construction) Abbreviation of flagstone: a construction material used for paving, flooring, roofing or tiling
6. The use of a flag, especially to indicate the start of a race or other event.
7. (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.
8. (computer science) In a command line interface, a command parameter requesting optional behavior or otherwise modifying the action of the command being invoked.
9. (Britain) An abbreviation for 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, 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.

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

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:

     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.
   • 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.

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”).

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.

   • Jonathan Swift

     The pleasures of the town begin to flag.

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

     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.
   • T. Moore

     as loose it [the sail] flagged around the mast

3. To let droop; to suffer to fall, or let fall, into feebleness.

   to flag the wings

   (Can we find and add a quotation of Prior to this entry?)

4. To enervate; to exhaust the vigour or elasticity of.
   • Echard

     Nothing so flags the spirits.

Of uncertain origin; compare Danish flæg.

flag (plural flags)

1. Any of various plants with sword-shaped leaves, especially irises; specifically, Iris pseudacorus.
   • ca. 1607, William Shakespeare, Antony and Cleopatra, Act I, sc. 3:

     [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, King James Version, 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.

• sweet flag

Probably of Scandinavian origin; compare Icelandic flag

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.

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.

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

flag n (singular definite flaget, plural indefinite flag)

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

flag

1. imperative of flage

From English flag.

flag m (plural flags, diminutive flagje n)

1. (computing) flag

From Old Norse.

• IPA^(key): /flaːɣ/

  Rhymes: -aːɣ

flag n (genitive singular flags, nominative plural flög)

1. area of ground stripped of turf

• flaga

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

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

• booleano