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:
According to Meta’s benchmark data, the flagship Muse Wonder Full beats out top OpenAI and Anthropic models on memory retention, financial analysis and long-horizon coding tasks — though rival models maintain advantages in other areas.
From MarketWatch ● Oct. 12, 2026
Mohn, a longtime underwriter of the museum’s flagship Made in L.A. biennial, said Ryan is extending the program’s impact by returning to participating artists for broader examinations of their work.
From Los Angeles Times ● Oct. 12, 2026
The group is also grappling with pressure from activist investors demanding focus on its flagship convenience retail business.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Oct. 9, 2026
The flagship fund lost 16% during its first year before rebounding to a 4% gain and lost about 8% in early 2024 before finishing the year up 20.8%.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Oct. 8, 2026
For most of its existence a small and contained operation, the NACA’s flagship laboratory was now a many-layered bureaucracy flush with new faces.
From "Hidden Figures" by Margot Lee Shetterly
Many big public flagships are also getting more competitive.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Aug. 20, 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
On the Spanish side several of the flagships joined in this rearguard fight.
From Famous Sea Fights From Salamis to Tsu-Shima by John Richard Hale
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.
