English
flag
Pronunciation
  • (British, America) IPA: /flæɡ/
  • (North American also) IPA: /fleɪɡ/
Noun

flag

  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.
  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. (British, 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.
    • 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.
Synonyms
  • (computer science: true-or-false value) Boolean
  • (computer science: CLI notation) switch, option
  • (geometry: sequence of faces of a polytope) dart
Translations Translations
  • Russian: флаг
Translations Translations Translations Verb

flag (flags, present participle flagging; 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.
  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.
Translations Translations
  • German: markieren, kennzeichnen
  • Portuguese: marcar com (uma) bandeira
  • Spanish: marcar o señalar con una bandera
Translations Translations Translations Translations Verb

flag (flags, present participle flagging; 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.
  2. To hang loose without stiffness; to bend down, as flexible bodies; to be loose, yielding, limp.
    • 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
  4. To enervate; to exhaust the vigour or elasticity of.
    • Nothing so flags the spirits.
Translations Noun

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.
Translations 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 (flags, present participle flagging; past and past participle flagged)

  1. (transitive) To pave with flagstones.
    Fred is planning to flag his patio this weekend.
Translations 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


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