flaggy

Etymology

From flag +‎ -y.

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): /ˈflæɡi/
• Rhymes: -æɡi

Adjective

flaggy (comparative more flaggy or flaggier, superlative most flaggy or flaggiest)

1. (obsolete) Hanging down; drooping, pendulous.
   • 1590, Edmund Spenser, “Book I, Canto XI”, in The Faerie Queene. […], London: […] [John Wolfe] for William Ponsonbie, →OCLC:

     His flaggy wings when forth he did display, / Were like two sayles, in which the hollow wynd / Is gathered full […]

2. (obsolete) Tasteless; insipid.
   • 1627 (indicated as 1626), Francis [Bacon], “(please specify the page, or |century=I to X)”, in Sylua Syluarum: Or A Naturall Historie. In Ten Centuries. […], London: […] William Rawley […]; [p]rinted by J[ohn] H[aviland] for William Lee […], →OCLC:

     Yet it is reported, that in the Low Countries they will graft an apple cion upon the stock of a colewort, and it will bear a great flaggy apple, the kernel of which, if it be set, will be a colewort, and not an apple.

3. (geology) Tending to split into layers like flagstones.
   • 1901, Geological Survey of Great Britain, Summary of Progress of the Geological Survey of Great Britain and The Museum of Practical Geology:

     If this view be correct there must have been a great difference in the sedimentation of the two areas, as the thick beds consist of alternations of flaggy sandstone with occasional true sandstone, almost pure limestones, calmstones, and few or no real flagstones.

   • 1869, R[ichard] D[oddridge] Blackmore, chapter VII, in Lorna Doone: A Romance of Exmoor. […], volume III, London: Sampson Low, Son, & Marston, […], →OCLC, page 111:

     In and out of the tufts they went, with their eyes dilating; wishing to be out of harm, if conscience were but satisfied. And of this tufty flaggy ground, pocked with bogs and boglets, one especial nature is that it will not hold impressions.

4. Abounding in flags (plants with sword-shaped leaves).

   Coordinate terms: reedy, rushy, sedgy

   • 1883, Francis Francis, The practical management of fisheries, page 42:

     […] the fish begin to get into drains or ditches, or rushy, flaggy eddies; it is always worth while to run the net round such places at that season, quietly to […] beat the flags out, […]

   • 1905, Paul Fountain, The Eleven Eaglets of the West, page 14:

     There are "tule" [reed or rush] rivers, and plains and sloughs and marshes in many parts of North California, the word invariable denoting reedy, rushy, or flaggy.

See also

• red-flaggy