[f. FLAG sb.1 + -Y1.]
1. Abounding in flags or reeds.
1382. Wyclif, Exod. ii. 3. He … putte the litil faunt with ynne, and sette out hym in the flaggi place of the brinke of the flode.
1552. Nottingham Rec., IV. 104. For the flaggy peyse of grounde lyeng at the tenauntes endes of the tenauntes partes in Estcrofte.
1610. G. Fletcher, Christ’s Vict., l.
| But my greene Muse, hiding her younger head | |
| Under old Chamus flaggy banks, that spread | |
| Their willough locks abroad. |
1641. Best, Farm. Bks. (Surtees), 40. There is a little flaggie piece towardes the west ende.
1821. Clare, The Village Minstrel, and Other Poems, I. 125. Recollections after a Ramble.
| While cows restless from the ground | |
| Plung’d into the stream and drank, | |
| And the rings went whirling round, | |
| Till they touch’d the flaggy bank. |
1884. Public Opinion, 5 Sept., 299/2. Its favourite flaggy haunts.
2. Consisting or made of flags or reeds.
1621. G. Sandys, Ovid’s Met., IX. (1626), 176.
| The rupture of his browes | |
| He shades with flaggie wreathes, and sallow boughes. |
1698. J. Fryer, A New Account of East-India and Persia, 17. Their Flaggy Mansions: Flags especially in their Villages (by them called Cajans, being Co-Coe-tree Branches) upheld with some few Sticks, supplying both Sides and Covering to their Cottages.
a. 1711. Ken, Edmund, Poet. Wks. 1721, II. 200.
| Cam will e’re long his flaggy Tresses rear, | |
| And two Twin-Suns shall gild the British Sphere. |
3. Resembling a flag or reed, flag-like.
1577. B. Googe, Heresbach’s Husb. (1586), III. 120. Rather soft sweete grasse, then hie and flaggy.
1597. Gerard, Herball, I. xxxiv. 45. The common Flower-de-luce hath long and large flaggie leaues, like the blade of a sworde.
1652. Culpepper, Eng. Physic., 95. (Flower-de-luce) The flaggy kindes thereof have the most physical uses.
c. 1730. Burt, Lett. N. Scotl. (1760), II. xxvi. 310. The sward, which was, in some parts, a kind of short flaggy grass, and in others a sort of mossy heath.
4. Of corn, straw, etc.: Having a large flag (see FLAG sb.1 2).
1842. Jrnl. R. Agric. Soc., III. II. 300. The best prospect of a good yield in a wheat crop is to see the straw bright and reedy, not flaggy, with an ear of fair length well filled out. Ibid. (1850), XI. II. 691. My corn being too strong and flaggy in the past year, I have drawn the whole of my turnips off the land this season.
