flagship
Americannoun
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flagships
plural
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a ship carrying the flag officer or the commander of a fleet, squadron, or the like, and displaying the officer's flag.
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the main vessel of a shipping company.
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any of the best or largest ships or airplanes operated by a passenger line.
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the best or most important one of a group or system.
This store is the flagship of our retail chain.
adjective
noun
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a ship, esp in a fleet, aboard which the commander of the fleet is quartered
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the most important ship belonging to a shipping company
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a single item from a related group considered as the most important, often in establishing a public image
the nine o'clock news is the flagship of the BBC
Other Word Forms
Noun Inflected Forms
Etymology
Origin of flagship
Explanation
Traditionally, the commander of a navy traveled in the flagship, which was distinguished by flying his distinctive flag. You can also call the ship in the front of a fleet the flagship. The flagship is generally the most powerful in some way — better armed, or larger, than the ships that follow it. Ultimately, the most important thing about a flagship is that it's first. Based on this meaning, another kind of flagship is something that's the first, best, or biggest example of something — a product, store, or program, for example. Starbucks' enormous flagship coffee shop, the company's largest and fanciest shop, is in Seattle, Washington.
Vocabulary lists containing flagship
Example Sentences
Examples are provided to illustrate real-world usage of words in context. Any opinions expressed do not reflect the views of Dictionary.com.
See Examples For:
Out of the back windows was a view of the Edge NYC, the flagship high-rise property of Hudson Yards, with its protuberant observation deck.
From Slate ● Sep. 18, 2026
Griffin will be at Wembley as part of Fox's team for their flagship pre-game show, which has gone overseas for the first time, with coverage starting two hours before kick-off.
From BBC ● Sep. 18, 2026
Jen Affleck, another original cast member of the flagship series, is also reportedly leaving the show and joining the cast of its first spinoff, “The Secret Lives of Mormon Wives: Orange County.”
From Los Angeles Times ● Sep. 15, 2026
"Sometimes they give wrong information. So, usually I do a crosscheck, from ChatGPT to Gemini," she said, referring respectively to OpenAI's and Google's flagship products.
From Barron's ● Sep. 15, 2026
The Mary Rose was Henry VIII's flagship that sank in a storm four centuries ago.
From "Black Swan Green" by David Mitchell
We expected the iPhone 18 Pro models to cost even more, but it looks like Apple bumped up other prices to avoid sticker shock on its flagships.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Sep. 10, 2026
Once completed, Trump said the armed vessels would be equipped to carry hypersonic and "extremely lethal" weapons, and would be the flagships of the US Navy.
From BBC ● Dec. 22, 2025
From glamorous flagships like the Ace Hotel to locals-only dives like Hank’s, downtown has lost a lot of the places that made it such a compelling place to live and party.
From Los Angeles Times ● Nov. 10, 2025
As many reports have pointed out, PBS and NPR, along with their news flagships, “PBS NewsHour” and “All Things Considered,” will not disappear.
From Salon ● Aug. 6, 2025
We have the figures of the losses during the duel of these two flagships.
From The French Revolution by Hilaire Belloc
Definitions and idiom definitions from Dictionary.com Unabridged, based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2023
Idioms from The American Heritage® Idioms Dictionary copyright © 2002, 2001, 1995 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company.
