What with Independence Day, Americans have no doubt seen a good number of flags this week. Flag is one of those delicious words etymologists aren’t 100% sure of. The noun form showed up in English in the late 1400
What with Independence Day, Americans have no doubt seen a good number of flags this week. Flag is one of those delicious words etymologists aren’t 100% sure of. The noun form showed up in English in the late 1400s.
Some argue that flag may have come from Old Norse, flaga, a word related to flake, and referring to split stone. We see this meaning in the English word flagstone. The theory is that flagstones are flat & rectangular, a flag is flat & rectangular, voila! Sounds like a bit of a stretch to me.
Another possibility is that flag comes from the Danish flaeg or Dutch flag. Both these words refer to a yellow iris &/or freshwater reed, things that flap about in the breeze, not unlike flags. Hmm.
The most likely connection (in my humble opinion) is to the verb flag, which predates the noun by a full century, & comes from Old Norse, flakka, to flicker, flap, or flutter. In the Old Norse term we can hear the onomatopoeia of fabric in a stiff wind. Etymologists in the flag-comes-from-flakka school of thought argue that the verb 