fünflagig

fünflagig is a German adjective formed from the numeral fünf ("five") and the suffix -flagig, which is derived from the noun Flagge and denotes the quality of being flagged or adorned with flags. The term literally means "having five flags" and is used to describe an object, person, or place that displays five flags, typically in a heraldic or ceremonial context. The adjective falls within a small group of composite words that specify a particular number of flags, such as zweimalflagig (“two-flagged”) or dreiflagig (“three-flagged”). This class of words is largely obsolete in everyday usage and appears mainly in historical descriptions, nautical logs, and heraldic documents dating from the early modern period.

The earliest documented occurrences of fünflagig are found in the late 18th‑ and early 19th‑century German naval records, where a ship’s ensign and supplementary signal flags would be described as "fünflagig" when it bore five distinct pennants. In the 19th‑century German Principality of Rur, a ceremonial banner carried by the town’s militia was famously referred to as the fünflagige banner, underscoring its symbolic significance. Once the use of distinctive pennants declined with the introduction of standardized international signaling systems, the word fell into disuse.

In contemporary German, the word may appear only in scholarly or archival texts when discussing historical flag arrangements or when describing a figurative image, such as a tapestry covered with five flag designs. In everyday speech it is uncommon and would usually be replaced by a more descriptive phrase such as "mit fünf Flaggen bestückt". The word is also occasionally used humorously in online communities to describe a person who wears or displays five different flag motifs at once.