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

The club burgee is a polar bear standing on a cake of ice, his rump raised to the wind, and after the annual regatta, awards are passed out: i.e.,

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

I have a real sorrow to think that I could not fly the commodore's burgee while Sir James was still alive.

From Time Magazine Archive

The man ambled along without haste, his jaws wagging industriously upon his tobacco, his iron-gray chin whiskers, from the wagging, flapping like a burgee in a breeze.

From The Miracle Man by Packard, Frank L. (Frank Lucius)

Related Words

• emblem
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