What does "flag" mean?
A piece of cloth, often decorated with an emblem, used as a visual signal or symbol.
Flag
noun, verb, slang
noun, verb, slang ·1 syllable ·Top 500 ·Elementary level
Meaning at a glance
- Primary sense: A piece of cloth, often decorated with an emblem, used as a visual signal or symbol.
- Grammar: flag is listed as noun, verb, slang.
- Nearest alternatives: option, abate, adobe, and blue.
- Useful contrasts: avoid, conceal, disregard.
- Usage evidence: Everybody started waving his flag.
How to use "flag"
- Start with the primary definition, then check the part of speech before placing the word in a sentence.
- Compare nearby synonyms to make sure "flag" carries the exact meaning, tone, and strength you need.
- Use the example sentence as a context check. If your sentence uses the word differently, confirm that the grammar still fits.
Meaning check
- Does the word fit the sentence's grammar?
- Does it match the intended tone rather than only the dictionary definition?
- Would a simpler synonym be clearer for the reader?
- Is there enough surrounding context to prevent ambiguity?
Source and review context
This entry combines structured lexical data with WordToolSet review checks. Definitions, examples, synonyms, and usage notes may come from different source tables, so the page is designed to show evidence from more than one angle before you rely on "flag" in a final draft.
If a word has several senses, prefer the sense that matches your sentence's grammar and surrounding context. A correct definition can still be the wrong choice when the sentence needs a different register, emphasis, or level of specificity.
Before you rely on this definition
Read the first definition as a starting point, then check the example, synonyms, and part of speech before treating "flag" as the right word for your sentence.
If your draft is formal, technical, persuasive, or sensitive, compare "flag" with a nearby alternative so the final choice matches both meaning and reader expectation.
Compare nearby meanings
- Use synonyms when you need a softer, stronger, simpler, or more specific word.
- Use antonyms to check the boundary of the meaning and avoid accidental contrast.
- Use the example sentence to confirm the word behaves naturally in context.
- Keep the original wording when a replacement adds complexity without improving precision.
Definition decision workflow
1. Identify the role
Check whether "flag" is acting as noun, verb, slang in your sentence. A definition is only useful when the grammar matches the way the word is being used.
2. Test the nearest option
Compare it with "option" and other nearby choices to see whether the sentence needs a softer, stronger, or more familiar word.
3. Confirm with context
Use the example sentence below as an evidence check, then read your own sentence out loud to catch tone or rhythm problems.
Review note: Definition pages are checked for source coverage, sentence evidence, synonym support, and editorial insight before they are treated as approval-ready pages. If the evidence is too thin, the page remains available to users but is kept out of the approval-facing indexed inventory.
Final meaning check
Before publishing a sentence with "flag", ask whether the word helps the reader understand the idea faster. A precise word should reduce confusion, not simply make the sentence look more polished.
When the definition, synonym evidence, and example context point in the same direction, the word is usually a safer choice. When they conflict, revise the sentence or choose a clearer alternative.
Definitions
Noun
- 1 A piece of cloth, often decorated with an emblem, used as a visual signal or symbol. countable, uncountable
"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 Any of various plants with sword-shaped leaves, especially irises; specifically, Iris pseudacorus.
"[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."
- 3 A slice of turf; a sod.
- 4 A group of feathers on the lower part of the legs of certain hawks, owls, etc.
- 5 a conspicuously marked or shaped tail wordnet
Show 25 more definitions
- 6 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. countable, uncountable
"The flag of France has three vertical stripes."
- 7 A slab of stone; a flagstone, a flat piece of stone used for paving.
"On market days the farmers would come in before going home - Tysons and Lindsays and Birketts and Longmires and Boows and Dawsons - and their dogs would lie in heaps on the flags while they themselves supped Gerald's ale."
- 8 A group of elongated wing feathers in certain hawks.
- 9 emblem usually consisting of a rectangular piece of cloth of distinctive design wordnet
- 10 A flag flown by a ship to show the presence on board of the admiral; the admiral himself, or his flagship. countable, uncountable
- 11 Any hard, evenly stratified sandstone, which splits into layers suitable for flagstones.
- 12 The bushy tail of a dog such as a setter.
- 13 stratified stone that splits into pieces suitable as paving stones wordnet
- 14 A signal flag. attributive, countable, often, uncountable
- 15 A hook attached to the stem of a written note that assigns its rhythmic value
- 16 flagpole used to mark the position of the hole on a golf green wordnet
- 17 The use of a flag, especially to indicate the start of a race or other event. countable, uncountable
- 18 a listing printed in all issues of a newspaper or magazine (usually on the editorial page) that gives the name of the publication and the names of the editorial staff, etc. wordnet
- 19 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. countable, uncountable
- 20 a rectangular piece of fabric used as a signalling device wordnet
- 21 In a command line interface, a command parameter requesting optional behavior or otherwise modifying the action of the command being invoked. countable, uncountable
"This will be used as a help message if the user passes in the --help flag, like so: […]"
- 22 plants with sword-shaped leaves and erect stalks bearing bright-colored flowers composed of three petals and three drooping sepals wordnet
- 23 A mechanical indicator that pops up to draw the pilot's attention to a problem or malfunction. countable, uncountable
"I was shooting an IFR approach down the San Francisco slot, when all of a sudden the ILS flag popped up."
- 24 The game of capture the flag. British, uncountable
- 25 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. countable, uncountable
"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."
- 26 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. countable, uncountable
- 27 A dark piece of material that can be mounted on a stand to block or shape the light. countable, uncountable
"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."
- 28 An apron. UK, archaic, countable, slang, uncountable
"Suppose you try a different tack, / And on the square you flash your flag?"
- 29 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. Internet, countable, uncountable
"set a death flag"
- 30 A groat; fourpence. UK, countable, obsolete, slang, uncountable
"[…] the orator pulled out a tremendous black doll, bought for a ‘flag’ (fourpence) of a retired rag-merchant, and dressed up in Oriental style."
Verb
- 1 To furnish or deck out with flags.
- 2 To weaken, become feeble. intransitive
"His strength flagged toward the end of the race."
- 3 To pave with flagstones. transitive
"Fred is planning to flag his patio this weekend."
- 4 become less intense wordnet
- 5 To mark with a flag, especially to indicate the importance of something.
"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."
Show 19 more definitions
- 6 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"
- 7 provide with a flag wordnet
- 8 To signal to, especially to stop a passing vehicle etc. often, with-down
"Please flag down a taxi for me."
- 9 To let droop; to suffer to fall, or let fall, into feebleness.
"The Thousand Loves , that arm thy potent Eye , Must drop their Quivers , flag their Wings"
- 10 communicate or signal with a flag wordnet
- 11 To convey (a message) by means of flag signals.
"to flag an order to troops or vessels at a distance"
- 12 To enervate; to exhaust the vigour or elasticity of.
"there is nothing that flags the Spirits, disorders the Blood, and enfeebles the whole Body of Man, as intense Studies."
- 13 decorate with flags wordnet
- 14 To note, mark or point out for attention. often, with-up
"I've flagged up the need for further investigation into this."
- 15 droop, sink, or settle from or as if from pressure or loss of tautness wordnet
- 16 To signal (an event).
"The compiler flagged three errors."
- 17 To set a program variable to true.
"Flag the debug option before running the program."
- 18 To decoy (game) by waving a flag, handkerchief, etc. to arouse the animal's curiosity.
"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."
- 19 To penalize for an infraction.
"The defender was flagged for unsportsmanlike conduct."
- 20 To lose on time, especially in a blitz game; when using a traditional analog chess clock, a flag would fall when time expired. intransitive
"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.”"
- 21 To defeat (an opponent) on time, especially in a blitz game. transitive
"White was winning positionally, but Black managed to flag him and win."
- 22 To point the muzzle of a firearm at a person or object one does not intend to fire on.
- 23 To fail, such as a class or an exam.
"After he flagged Algebra, Mike was ineligible for the football team."
- 24 In female canids, to signal mating readiness by moving the tail aside to expose the vulva.
"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."
Example
"Everybody started waving his flag."
Common questions
What is a synonym for "flag"?
Common synonyms include: option, abate, adobe, and blue, ashlar, asphalt.
How do you use "flag" in a sentence?
Everybody started waving his flag.
Etymology
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. 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.
Etymology 2
Perhaps from a variant of flack (“to hang loose”), from Middle English flacken; or perhaps from Old Norse. Compare Middle Dutch flaggheren, vlaggheren (“to droop, flag”).
Etymology 3
From Middle English flagge, 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.
Etymology 4
From Middle English flag, flagge, probably of Scandinavian/North Germanic origin; compare Icelandic flag.