flag

«flag» in Mova's school dictionary: a piece of cloth with colours and pictures that stands… — its meaning for a pupil, its sense in the lessons and examples, with 5 sentences of Mova's corpora that use it.

part of speech

noun (flag, flags); verb (flag, flags, flagged, flagging)

meaning for a pupil

1) A flag is a piece of cloth with colours and pictures that stands for a country, a team or a group. tree →

2) A flag can be a sign or signal, like a chequered flag at the end of a race or a red flag for danger. tree →

3) To flag something is to mark it so people notice it. tree →

4) To flag means to get tired and slow down. tree →

sense in the lessons

In school maths: things counted, often put along a line at equal gaps; flags with stripes or colours; symmetry in flag designs. In geography: national flags (the Union Jack, the Stars and Stripes, the Maple Leaf). In safety: swim between the red and yellow flags at the beach (Australia, New Zealand, UK). Phrases: «wave a flag», «fly a flag», «red flag», «flag down» (wave to stop a car).

examples

• There are 12 flags along the street. tree →
• Each flag has 3 stripes. tree →
• Flags are put every 4 m on a 20 m path. tree →
• She draws 5 red flags and 3 blue flags. tree →
• The flag of Canada has a red maple leaf. tree →
• Always swim between the red and yellow flags. tree →
• The runners were flagging near the end of the race. tree →
• The teacher flagged the mistakes in red. tree →
• Steamboats, with waving flags, pass swiftly by. tree →

note

Countable: «a flag». A flag «flies» or «waves». Maths: counted things; along a line, flags and gaps differ by one. Trap: count flags at both ends.

In the corpora

• A spam filter can give points to warning words and flag a message when its points reach a set number.
• In Australia, New Zealand and the UK, lifeguards mark the safest place to swim with red and yellow flags.
• Red and yellow flags mark the area that lifeguards watch, and you swim between them.
• Lifeguards move the flags during the day, because the safe place changes as the tide and currents change.
• A red flag on its own means it is too dangerous to swim.

Trees and pragmatics

Every meaning and example of «flag» parsed by Mova, each sentence with its dependency tree and frames.