Flagship

How to spell flagship

8 letters · 2 syllables

How to pronounce flagship

Say the part in capitals loudest.

What does flagship mean?

1. nounThe most important or most prestigious item, product, or location in a group, often used to represent the whole.
2. nounThe ship in a fleet that carries the commanding admiral and flies his flag.

Flagship in a sentence

• The company opened its new flagship store on the busiest street in the city.

• The admiral directed the entire fleet from the deck of his flagship.

• The latest phone is the brand's flagship model, priced well above the rest.

• Enemy gunners concentrated their fire on the flagship to cripple the command.

Where does flagship come from?

Language of origin: Germanic

This is a compound built from two everyday English words: 'flag', a banner whose origin is uncertain but likely imitative or Germanic, and 'ship', from the Old English 'scip', meaning a seagoing vessel. In the navies of the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, the most senior officer, an admiral or commodore, would command a fleet from one particular vessel, and that ship carried his distinguishing flag at the masthead so the rest of the fleet could see where its leader was. That ship was literally the 'flag ship', the one flying the commanding flag, and the term is recorded from the early 1670s. Because the flagship was the grandest and most important vessel of the fleet, the word slid naturally into figurative use during the twentieth century, describing the leading or most prestigious item in any group, such as a company's flagship product or a chain's flagship store. The spelling is straightforward once you see it is simply 'flag' and 'ship' joined with no letters added or dropped.

How the word is built

• flag (banner, ensign)
• ship (vessel)