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flaw

noun
/flɔː/UK/flɔ/US/flɔ//ˈflɔː/

Etymology

From Middle English flawe, flay (“a flake of fire or snow, spark, splinter”), probably from Old Norse flaga (“a flag or slab of stone, flake”), from Proto-Germanic *flagō (“a layer of soil”), from Proto-Indo-European *plok- (“broad, flat”). Cognate with Icelandic flaga (“flake”), Swedish flaga (“flake, scale”), Danish flage (“flake”), Middle Low German vlage (“a layer of soil”), Old English flōh (“a fragment, piece”).

  1. derived from *flagǭ✻ — “blow, strike”
  2. derived from flaga
  3. derived from flaga — “gust of wind”
  4. derived from *flagā✻
  5. derived from vlāge
  6. derived from vlāghe
  7. inherited from *flaugh✻

Definitions

  1. A flake, fragment, or shiver.

  2. A thin cake, as of ice.

  3. A crack or breach, a gap or fissure

    A crack or breach, a gap or fissure; a defect of continuity or cohesion.

    • There is a flaw in that knife.
    • That vase has a flaw.
    • This heart / Shall break into a hundred thousand flaws.
  4. ›+ 6 more definitions

    1. A defect, fault, or imperfection, especially one that is hidden.

      • Has not this also its flaws and its dark side?

    2. To add a flaw to, to make imperfect or defective.

    3. To become imperfect or defective

      To become imperfect or defective; to crack or break.

    4. A sudden burst or gust of wind of short duration

      A sudden burst or gust of wind of short duration; windflaw.

      • And snow and haile and stormie gust and flaw
      • Yniol with that hard message went; it fell, / Like flaws in summer laying lusty corn: […]

    5. A storm of short duration.

    6. A sudden burst of noise and disorder

      • And deluges of armies from the town / Come pouring in; I heard the mighty flaw.

The neighborhood

Vish — recursive loop

A definitional loop anchored at flaw. Each word in the ring is defined by the next; follow the chain far enough and it folds back on itself. Scroll to it and watch.

01flaw02fissure03skin04protective05protect06reserved07aside08perfect

A definitional loop anchored at flaw. Each word in the ring appears in the definition of the next; follow the chain far enough and it folds back on itself.

8 hops · closes at flaw

curated · pre-corpus. live cycle detection across the full graph is the next major milestone.

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