flag

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Pronunciation

• (UK) (US) IPA ^(key): /flæɡ/

• Audio (US)

  (file)

Noun

Singular flag

Plural flags

A flag

1. (countable) A flag is a piece of cloth, usually marked with a colourful symbol or sign.
2. (countable) A flag flown by a ship is to show the presence on board of the admiral (the leader of a group of ships); the admiral himself; or his flagship.
3. The use of a flag, especially to show the start of a race or other event.

   Be ready to start running immediately at the flag.

4. On a computer, a flag is a variable or place in the computer's memory that keeps a true-or-false, yes-or-no value, usually either recording the fact that a certain event has happened or asking for a certain action to happen if it's an action that doesn't always happen.
5. In a command line interface (a place on a computer screen for people to type commands for a computer to do), a sign telling the computer to do something it does only sometimes, or a sign changing in some other way the action of the command being typed.

Verb

Plain form flag

Third-person singular flags

Past tense flagged

Past participle flagged

Present participle flagging

1. If you mark with a flag, it shows the importance of something.
2. (often with down) To signal to, especially to stop a car that's driving past, etc.

   Please flag a taxi down for me.

3. When a person flags, the person becomes weak, tired or feeble.

   His strength flagged toward the end of the race.

4. To signal or mark something that happened.

   The compiler flagged three errors.

5. To set the value of a variable in a computer program to true.

   Flag the debug option before running the program.