[f. FLAG sb.4 + MAN.]
† 1. An admiral, a flag-officer. Obs.
1666. Pepys, Diary (1879), III. 428. To Mr. Lilly’s, the painter’s; and there saw the heads, some finished, and all begun, of the Flaggmen in the late great fight with the Duke of York against the Dutch.
1713. [Darrell], Gentleman Instructed, III. (ed. 5), 409. He was a kind of Flagman, a Vice-Admiral, in all those Expeditions of Good-fellowship.
2. One who has charge of or carries a flag; one who signals with a flag.
1832. Lincoln Herald, 13 Jan. 1. The crowd all rushed into the yard, with Beck, the flagman.
1875. ‘Stonehenge,’ Brit. Sports, II. I. xiv.§ 1. 487. The Starter is generally on foot, and he is now allowed an assistant, besides a flagman.
1890. Pall Mall G., 14 Jan., 6/1. The flagman … obeyed the order.
