[Note: this is a revised version of what I posted on 7 October, based on an excellent close reading of the early citations by Syntinen Laulu in this site’s discussion forum; 11 October 2020.]
11 October 2020
The phrase with flying colors may be somewhat opaque to people today. While its meaning, to achieve undoubted success, is well understood, why this particular wording is used is a mystery to some. Furthermore, the phrase did not always mean an undoubted success. The earliest use of the phrase imply that it refers to not losing badly rather than winning.
Colors here means flags, military banners. And indeed, the phrasing with flying colors is originally a reference to armies on the field of battle. To have one’s colors captured was the sign of a rout, a great defeat, and if one left the field with colors flying, that was a signal that one had not been defeated.
The phrase appears in print by 1612 in John Speed’s the Theatre of the Empire of Great Britaine, in what appears to be anachronistic reference to the Spanish invasion of Ireland in 1601–02, but Speed seems to be suggesting that the Spanish had made their intentions known as early as 1585. The following passage in this book is a reference to the deliberations of Elizabeth I and her counselors in 1585 regarding what would later be known as the Anglo-Spanish War:
Her Councell then assembled to conferre of the businesse, many waighty considerations amongst them were mooued, and lastly concluded, that her Maiesty ought to accept of the offer. The defence of Gods Gospel was the first motiue she being the nursing mother of Christs distressed Saints: The Spanish Inquisition, that without respect had persecuted her Subiects contrary to right, was too cruell to be tollerated: Philips Army with flying colours sent lately into Ireland vpon gift made vnto him by the Pope, with a purpose of the like enterprize for England, bewraied their intents; and lastly the hard measure that was to bee expected for England, if the Spaniards seated in these neere Netherland Prouinces was to be preuented.
By saying Philip’s army was sent to Ireland with flying colours implies they expected success, but in fact were defeated at the Siege of Kinsale and surrendered in January 1602, although they received favorable terms and were allowed to keep their colors. So this is not an example of unalloyed success.
But the phrase quickly shifted into the metaphorical. The first appearance of the figurative sense in print is from some ten years later in William Ames’s A Reply to Dr. Mortons Generall Defence of Three Nocent Ceremonies:
But the Defendant undertaketh to proue, that the cause of silencing is not in the Bishops that suspend and deprive us: but in our selves. He is as it seemeth, a great adventurer: For hee commeth forth upon this peece of service vvith flying colours: Know you well what you say (sayth hee) when you lay the cause of your silencing upon the Bishops? Yes surely, very well. For a cause is that which bringeth force or vertue to the being of another thing.
Ames seems to agree with Morton’s point that the cause of the punishment of nonconformist priests by Anglican bishops did not lie with the bishops, but with the priests’ beliefs—but he is being sarcastic here, as Ames is on the side of the nonconformists, saying that the bishops are not literally the cause, as that word is defined, but they are in the wrong. He is saying the bishops won the case because of their authority, not because they were correct.
The next citation in the Oxford English Dictionary (OED) makes this same point explicitly. From John Locke’s 1692 Third Letter for Toleration:
Where are the Canons of this over-ruling Art to be found, to which you pay such Reverence? May a Man of no distinguishing Character be admitted to the Privilege of them? For I see it may be of notable Use at a dead-lift, and bring a Man off with flying Colours, when Truth and Reason can do him but little Service. The strong Guard you have in the Powers you write for; And when you have engaged a little too far, the safe Retreat you have always at hand in an Appeal to these Men of Art, made me almost at a stand, whether I were not best make a Truce with one who had such Auxiliaries. A Friend of mine finding me talk thus, replied briskly; 'tis a Matter of Religion, which requires not Men of Art; and the Assistance of such Art as savours so little of the Simplicity of the Gospel, both shews and makes the Cause the weaker.
Locke is saying that appealing to the authority of the church is a powerful weapon in arguments about religion, allowing one to retreat with dignity when one has lost the argument.
And we see the same sense of with flying colors in the field of dramatic comedy. From George Farquhar’s 1707 play The Beaux Stratagem, in which Aimwell and Archer “two gentlemen of broken fortunes” converse on the need to appear to have money. Archer says:
Don’t mistake me, Aimwell, for ‘tis still my Maxim, that there is no scandal like Rags, nor any Crime so shameful as Poverty.
A few lines later, Aimwell agrees:
And as much avoided, for not Crime on Earth but the want of Money.
And a few lines later:
Arch. Our Friends indeed began to suspect that our pockets were low; but we came off with flying Colours, shew’d no signs of want either in Word or Deed.
Aim. Ay, and our going to Brussels was a good Pretence enough for our sudden disappearing; and I warrant you, our Friends imagine we are gone a volunteering.
Again, another example of escaping a defeat with one’s dignity intact. The success of Farquhar’s play may also have helped cement the phrase in the language.
But sometime in the nineteenth century the sense of the idiom shifted from that of having avoided defeat to that of achieving resounding success. From an 1865 biography of Ludwig van Beethoven:
He judged himself no longer by the standard of his native town, but rather by that of the imperial metropolis, where music was at its highest eminence. There was no question as to the superiority of the Vienna music over that of the Electoral residence. But how had this affected him? In spite of the immeasurably higher standard of the one school, he had come off with flying colours. He felt an invigorating consciousness of power, which was however far removed from presumption. He had ripened without having become either vain or self-satisfied.
Perhaps with the advent of industrialized warfare, the idiom was reanalyzed. Flags on the battlefield were no longer relevant, and military use of them relegated to triumphal marches. With this shift, the phrase also shifted in meaning, from to get away without serious harm to that of unalloyed success.
Sources:
Ames, William. A Reply to Dr. Mortons Generall Defence of Three Nocent Ceremonies. Amsterdam: Giles Thorp, 1622, 83. Early English Books Online (EEBO).
Farquhar, George. The Beaux Stratagem. London: Bernard Lintott, 1707, 4–5. Eighteenth Century Collections Online (ECCO).
Locke, John. A Third Letter for Toleration. London: Awnsham and John Churchill, 1692, 186. Early English Books Online (EEBO).
Oxford English Dictionary, third edition, September 2011, s.v. colour | color, n.1.
Speed, John. The Theatre of the Empire of Great Britaine. London: WIlliam Hall, 1612, 855. Early English Books Online (EEBO).
Wegeler, Franz Gerhard. Furioso; or Passages from the Life of Ludwig van Beethoven. Octavius Glover, trans. Cambridge: Deighton, Bell, and Co., 1865, 140–41. HathiTrust Digital Archive.