Learning about Pilot Flags

It pays to have two dictionaries at hand.

The old one will tell you what the words you run across used to mean.

You need the new one to tell you what people are saying that words mean now. Strangely enough, meanings change so much and so often that the best we can do is say what “usage” says they mean.

My old dictionary says that a pilot flag is one hoisted at the fore by a vessel coming into harbor and desiring a pilot.

It was a “plate” of colored pilot flags that got me interested in flags at all.

Curious as to how a newer dictionary would define pilot flags, I looked it up in the list of de...