“flaking” is a form of
flake
/fleɪk/ noun, verb, proper noun
Forms flakes flaking flaked
- noun 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.”
- noun A scale of a fish or similar animal
- noun (archaeology) A prehistoric tool chipped out of stone.
- noun (informal) 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.”
- noun A carnation with only two colours in the flower, the petals having large stripes.
- noun A flat turn or tier of rope.
- noun (US, law enforcement, slang) A corrupt arrest, e.g. to extort money for release or merely to fulfil a quota.
- noun A wire rack for drying fish.
- verb To break or chip off in a flake. “The paint flaked off after only a year.”
- verb (colloquial) To prove unreliable or impractical; to abandon or desert, to fail to follow through. “He said he'd come and help, but he flaked.”
- verb (technical) To store an item such as rope or sail in layers “The line is flaked into the container for easy attachment and deployment.”
- verb (Ireland, slang) To hit (another person).
- verb (US, law enforcement, slang) To plant evidence to facilitate a corrupt arrest.
- verb To lay out on a flake for drying. “flake a fish”
- noun (UK) Dogfish.
- noun (Australia) The meat of the gummy shark.
- noun (UK, dialect) A paling; a hurdle.
- noun A platform of hurdles, or small sticks made fast or interwoven, supported by stanchions, for drying codfish and other things.
- noun (nautical) A small stage hung over a vessel's side, for workmen to stand on while calking, etc.
- proper noun A surname.
Synonyms
fleak snowflake eccentric eccentric person oddball geek bit chip fleck scrap peel off peel flake off
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.
A name given to dogfish to improve its marketability as a food, perhaps from etymology 1.
Compare Icelandic flaki, Icelandic fleki, Danish flage, Dutch vlaak.
Webster’s 1913
- noun A paling; a hurdle. [prov. Eng.]
- noun A platform of hurdles, or small sticks made fast or interwoven, supported by stanchions, for drying codfish and other things.
- noun A loose filmy mass or a thin chiplike layer of anything; a film; flock; lamina; layer; scale; as, a flake of snow, tallow, or fish.
- noun A little particle of lighted or incandescent matter, darted from a fire; a flash.
Etymology [Cf. Icel. flaki, fleki, Dan. flage, D. vlaak.]
Etymology [Cf. Icel. flakna to flake off, split, flagna to flake off, Sw. flaga flaw, flake, flake plate, Dan. flage snowflake. Cf. Flag a flat stone.]
Sources: Wiktionary · WordNet 3.0 · Webster’s 1913 — from the Wiktionary entry “flake”, CC BY-SA 4.0. Details