Word.ws English Dictionary

lay down one's flag

lay down one's flag verb: to surrender or resign, especially in a military context.

Verb

lay down one's flag (third-person singular simple present lays down one's flag, present participle laying down one's flag, simple past and past participle laid down one's flag)

  1. To surrender or resign, especially in a military context.
    • Admiral Middlebrooks laid down his flag as a result of the humiliating defeat at the hands of France.

Forms of lay down one's flag

third-person singular presentlays down one's flag
present participlelaying down one's flag
past participlelaid down one's flag
pastlaid down one's flag

Questions about lay down one's flag

What does lay down one's flag mean?
Lay down one's flag means to surrender or resign, especially in a military context.
What part of speech is lay down one's flag?
Lay down one's flag is a verb.
What is the past tense of lay down one's flag?
The past tense of lay down one's flag is laid down one's flag.

Words near lay down one's flag in the dictionary

  1. lay down
  2. lay down arms
  3. lay down on
  4. lay down on the job
  5. lay down one's arms
  6. lay down one's flag
  7. lay down one's life
  8. lay down one's weapons
  9. lay down the law
  10. lay down the marker
  11. lay eggs

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: lay down one's flag (page history and authors). Text available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 license. Word.ws reformatted the entry and added links. Wiktionary data of 2026-09-02.

Last updated:

Cite this entry: “lay down one's flag.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/lay_down_one%27s_flag. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.