flake

noun

/fleɪk/UK

Etymology

From Middle English flake (“a flake of snow”), from Old English flacca and/or Old Norse flak (“loose or torn piece”) (compare Old Norse flakna (“to flake or chip”)), from Proto-Germanic *flaką (“something flat”), from Proto-Indo-European *pleh₂- (“flat, broad, plain”). Cognate with Norwegian flak (“slice, sliver”, literally “piece torn off”), Swedish flak (“a thin slice”), Danish flage (“flake”), German Flocke (“flake”), Dutch vlak (“smooth surface, plain”) and vlok (“flake”), as well as with Latin plaga (“flat surface, district, region”) and Welsh llech (“slate, tablet”). Doublet of plage.

derived from *pleh₂-✻
derived from *flaką✻ — “something flat”
derived from flak — “loose or torn piece”
inherited from flacca
inherited from flake — “a flake of snow”

Definitions

1
A loose filmy mass or a thin chiplike layer of anything
- There were a few flakes of paint on the floor from when we were painting the walls.
- flakes of dandruff
- And you treated my woman to a flake of your life. And when she came back she was nobody's wife.
A scale of a fish or similar animal
A prehistoric tool chipped out of stone.
›+ 18 more definitionsshow fewer
1. 4
  A person who is impractical, flighty, unreliable, or inconsistent
  A person who is impractical, flighty, unreliable, or inconsistent; especially with maintaining a living.
  - She makes pleasant conversation, but she's kind of a flake when it comes time for action.
2. A carnation with only two colours in the flower, the petals having large stripes.
3. 6
  A flat turn or tier of rope.
  - Admiral: What mean you by flakes? Captain: They are only those several circles or rounds of the roapes or cables, that are quoiled up round.
4. 7
  A corrupt arrest, e.g. to extort money for release or merely to fulfil a quota.
  - When police decided to score gamblers, they would most often flake people with gambling slips, then demand $25 or $50 for not arresting them. Other times, they would simply threaten a flake and demand money.
5. A wire rack for drying fish.
6. 9
  To break or chip off in a flake.
  - The paint flaked off after only a year.
7. 10
  To prove unreliable or impractical
  To prove unreliable or impractical; to abandon or desert, to fail to follow through.
  - He said he'd come and help, but he flaked.
8. 11
  To store an item such as rope or sail in layers
  - The line is flaked into the container for easy attachment and deployment.
9. To hit (another person).
10. 13
  To plant evidence to facilitate a corrupt arrest.
  - When police decided to score gamblers, they would most often flake people with gambling slips, then demand $25 or $50 for not arresting them. Other times, they would simply threaten a flake and demand money.
11. 14
  To lay out on a flake for drying.
  - flake a fish
12. Dogfish.
13. 16
  The meat of the gummy shark.
  - Susan said, ‘Get me a piece of flake and a serve of chips.’
  - The local fish shop sold a bit of flake (shark) but most people were too spoiled to eat shark. The main item on the Kiwi table was still snapper, and there was plenty of them, caught by the Kiwis themselves, so no shortage whatsoever.
14. A paling
  A paling; a hurdle.
15. 18
  A platform of hurdles, or small sticks made fast or interwoven, supported by stanchions,…
  A platform of hurdles, or small sticks made fast or interwoven, supported by stanchions, for drying codfish and other things.
  - You shall also, after they be ripe, neither suffer them to have straw nor fern under them, but lay them either upon some smooth table, boards, or flakes of wands, and they will last the longer.
16. A small stage hung over a vessel's side, for workmen to stand on while calking, etc.
17. 20
  Alternative form of fake (“turn or coil of cable or hawser”).
  - Flake after flake ran out of the tubs, until we were compelled to hand the end of our line to the second mate to splice his own on to.
18. A surname.

The neighborhood

Derived

antiflake, branflake, bread flake, cornflake, flakable, flakage, flakeboard, Flakegate, flakeless, flakelet, flakelike, flakeproof, flaker, flake salt, flake white, flaky, microflake, nanoflake, oatflake, pentaflake, rye flake, snowflake, soapflake, soap flake, sootflake, wheatflake, beflake, flakeable, flake down, flake off, flake out

Vish — recursive loop

No curated loop yet for flake. Loops are being traced one word at a time while the ingestion pipeline matures.

sense glosses and etymology drawn from English Wiktionary · source · CC-BY-SA