burgee

American  

[bur-jee, bur-jee] / ˈbɜr dʒi, bɜrˈdʒi /

noun

1. a triangular flag or one having a shallow, angular indentation in the fly, forming two tails, used as an identification flag, especially by yachts.

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burgee British  

/ ˈbɜːdʒiː /

noun

1. nautical a triangular or swallow-tailed flag flown from the mast of a merchant ship for identification and from the mast of a yacht to indicate its owner's membership of a particular yacht club

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Etymology

Origin of burgee

1840–50; perhaps shortening of *burgee's flag, by reanalysis of *burgess flag, burgess translating French bourgeois in sense “owner” (of a ship)

Example Sentences

Bertarelli's catamaran, sailing under the burgee of the Societe Nautique de Geneve from landlocked Switzerland, is the width of two tennis courts and has a tilting mast that towers 17 storeys high.

From Reuters • Feb. 4, 2010

Last known U. S. slave ship was The Wanderer, built as a yacht, the fastest craft flying the burgee of the New York Yacht Club.

From Time Magazine Archive

With a stickpin burgee of the Royal Yacht Squadron in his necktie and a briar pipe in his mouth.

From Time Magazine Archive

Sir Arthur Henry Rostron, rescuer-hero of the Titanic disaster,* flew his newly-acquired Commodore's burgee from the mainmast as the Cunard flagship Berengaria entered New York harbor.

From Time Magazine Archive

Her steam was up, a velvet-black pitch-pine smoke billowed from her chimneys, and her red-and-white burgee, gleaming upon it, named her the Votaress.

From Gideon's Band A Tale of the Mississippi by Cable, George Washington

Related Words

• emblem
• headline
• pennant
• streamer