Definition of "ensign"

The Ensigns of our Power about we bear; / And every Land pays Tribute to the Fair.

1690, Edmund Waller, The Maid’s Tragedy, Alter’d by Mr Waller‎, page 8

The skipper Mr. Cooke had hired at Far Harbor was a God-fearing man with a luke warm interest in his new billet and employer, and had only been prevailed upon to take charge of the yacht after the offer of an emolument equal to half a year's sea pay of an ensign in the navy.

1897 December (indicated as 1898), Winston Churchill, chapter X, in The Celebrity: An Episode, New York, N.Y.: The Macmillan Company; London: Macmillan & Co., Ltd.

Hang up your ensigns, let your drums be still,

1591 (date written), William Shakespeare, “The First Part of Henry the Sixt”, in Mr. William Shakespeares Comedies, Histories, & Tragedies […] (First Folio), London: […] Isaac Iaggard, and Ed[ward] Blount, published 1623, [Act V, scene iv]

But Alcibiades swiftly ran up the Athenian ensign on his flagship and bore down on that part of the Peloponnesian fleet which held the advantage and was pursuing the Athenians.

1960 , Ian Scott-Kilvert, “Life of Alcibiades”, in The Rise and Fall of Athens: Nine Greek Lives, translation of original by Plutarch

Ten thousand thousand ensigns high advanced.

1667, John Milton, “(please specify the book number)”, in Paradise Lost. […], London: […] [Samuel Simmons], […]; republished as Paradise Lost in Ten Books: […], London: Basil Montagu Pickering […], 1873,

HENRY but ioyn’d the Roses, that ensign’d / Particular families, but this hath ioyn’d / The Rose and Thistle,

1610, Ben Jonson, The Speeches at Prince Henry's Barriers‎