flake

Etymology 1

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.

noun

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. 1971, Leonard Cohen, Famous Blue Raincoat
2. A scale of a fish or similar animal
3. (archaeology) A prehistoric tool chipped out of stone.
4. (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.
   The center encouraged its devotees to wear lucky red strings around one wrist, which Neumann did for quite a while, until a more sober-minded business person warned him to lose the item or risk confirming his burgeoning reputation as a flake. 2020-10-23, Walter Kirn, “The Cautionary Tale of Adam Neumann and WeWork”, in New York Times
5. A carnation with only two colours in the flower, the petals having large stripes.
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. 1634, Nathaniel Boteler, Boteler's Dialogues
   A flake is the sailor's term for a turn in an ordinary coil, or for a complete tier in a flat coil, as a French or Flemish flake. The current dictionary form of the word is fake, a word that I have never heard used with this meaning. A Flemish flake is a spiral coil of one layer only. 1944, Clifford W. Ashley, The Ashley Book of Knots, Doubleday, pages 516–517
7. (US, law enforcement, slang) 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. 1973, Knapp Commission, New York, The Knapp Commission Report on Police Corruption, page 83
8. A wire rack for drying fish.

verb

1. To break or chip off in a flake.
   The paint flaked off after only a year.
2. (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.
3. (technical) To store an item such as rope or sail in layers
   The line is flaked into the container for easy attachment and deployment.
4. (Ireland, slang) To hit (another person).
5. (US, law enforcement, slang) 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. 1973, Knapp Commission, New York, The Knapp Commission Report on Police Corruption, page 83
6. To lay out on a flake for drying.
   flake a fish

Etymology 2

A name given to dogfish to improve its marketability as a food, perhaps from etymology 1.

noun

1. (UK) Dogfish.
2. (Australia) The meat of the gummy shark.
   Larger shark received about 10%/kg less than those in the 4-6 kg range. Most of the Victorian landed product is wholesaled as carcasses on the Melbourne Fish Market where it is sold to fish and chip shops, the retail sector and through restaurants as ‘flake’. 1999, R. Shotton, Case studies of the management of elasmobranch fisheries, Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations, Part 1, page 746
   Susan said, ‘Get me a piece of flake and a serve of chips.’ 2002, Alex Miller, Journey to the Stone Country, Allen & Unwin, published 2003, page 72
   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. 2007, Archie Gerzee, WOW! Tales of a Larrikin Adventurer, page 141

Etymology 3

Compare Icelandic flaki, Icelandic fleki, Danish flage, Dutch vlaak.

noun

1. (UK, dialect) A paling; a hurdle.
2. 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. 1613, Gervase Markham, English Husbandman
3. (nautical) A small stage hung over a vessel's side, for workmen to stand on while calking, etc.
4. (nautical) 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. 1898, Frank T. Bullen, The Cruise of the Cachalot: The Story of a New Bedford Whaler