[f. FLAG sb.2 + STONE.] a. A flag or flat stone suitable for paving, etc.; hence often in pl. = pavement. b. Sandstone capable of being split up into flags.
a. 1730. A. Gordon, Maffei’s Amphith., 359. The great Conduit has a Pavement of large Flag-Stones.
1791. Boswell, Johnson (1848), 807/2. Over his [Johnson’s] grave was placed a large blue flagstone with this inscription.
1840. Mrs. F. Trollope, The Widow Married, xii. The Allen O’Donagough family found themselves enjoying the sea-breeze on the broad flag-stones of the Marine Parade.
b. 1812–6. J. Smith, The Panorama of Science and Art, I. 220. If, for example, a block of flag-stone were converted into a pillar, so as to leave each lamina or flag of which it is composed posited horizontally, it would sustain any weight not capable of crushing it to atoms.
1868. Lossing, The Hudson, 184. Here, and in the vicinity [of Rondout Creek], are manufactories of cements, and also extensive quarries of flagstone.
attrib. 1842. H. Miller, The Old Red Sandstone, x. (ed. 2), 229. The most valuable quarries in the Old Red System of Scotland yet discovered, are the flagstone-quarries of Caithness and Carmylie.
Hence Flagstoned, paved with flag-stones.
1885. S. O. Jewett, A Marsh Island, xi. The narrow window, from whence one could look across the flag-stoned court and up the hillside.
