hen you complete some deed with very good results, they would say: you’d done it with flying colors, an archaic term originated from the age – of – sail, the maritime tradition of a ship (returning to its home port) flying its colors (flags) to signal that a mission had been accomplished. In contrast, strike the colors is an act of surrender, of giving up. Another term: to nail the colors (to the mast) means: to fight to the bitter end and giving up is not an option, cause flags that have been nailed to the mast can not be stricken (lowered), intentionally or accidentally during a naval battle.

I hoist my coded colors below… 😀