flak

Etymology

It is borrowed from German Flak,^[2][3][4] short for Fliegerabwehrkanone (“anti-aircraft gun”), from the initial letters of its parts.^{[2][5][6][4][3]} The compound is formed from Flieger (“flier, airman; airplane”), Abwehr (“defence”) and Kanone (“cannon”),^[3][7] literally "pilot-defence-gun".^[4][8] Merriam-Webster traces the German noun for an airman to the verb fliegen (“to fly”), from Old High German fliogan, and the noun for a cannon to Italian cannone.^[7]

Earliest recorded meaning

An anti-aircraft gun: 1938, in Jane's Fighting Ships.^[4][3][2]

Semantic evolution

The sense "anti-aircraft fire", which became the usual one in English, is first recorded in 1940, during the Second World War,^[3][2][4] and the Shorter Oxford notes that it referred especially to German fire in that war.^[8] Compounds such as flak-happy, mentally affected by flak, followed,^[4] and the flak jacket is recorded by 1956.^[2] The figurative sense, a barrage of hostile criticism, arose in American English about 1963;^[2][3] the OED's first record of it is from 1968, in the New York Times.^[4]

Timeline

• 1938 – an anti-aircraft gun.^[4][3]
• 1940 – anti-aircraft fire.^[3][2]
• 1956 – flak jacket.^[2]
• c. 1963 – strong adverse criticism, in American English.^[2][3] The OED's first record of this sense is from 1968.^[4]

Meanings

Noun

1. Fire from anti-aircraft guns: The bomber limped home through heavy flak.^[9][7][4][8]
2. Anti-aircraft guns.^[7][4]
3. (informal) Strong adverse criticism or hostile reaction: The minister took a lot of flak over the new tax.^[9][7][4][8]

Related words

• fly
• cannon
• flack

Usage notes

In the sense of criticism the word is also spelled flack.^[9][8] Conversely flak is a spelling of flack, a press agent, which Green's Dictionary of Slang records from 1937 and links tentatively to the name of Gene Flack, a film publicist of the 1930s.^[10][7]

References

1. ^ Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b c d e f g h i Harper, Douglas. Online Etymology Dictionary, https://www.etymonline.com
3. ^ a b c d e f g h i Barnhart, Robert K. (1988), The Barnhart Dictionary of Etymology
4. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l Oxford English Dictionary Online (accessed March 2026), Oxford: Oxford University Press
5. ^ Stevenson, Angus, ed. (2010), Oxford Dictionary of English, 3rd ed., Oxford: Oxford University Press
6. ^ Partridge, Eric (1966), Origins: A Short Etymological Dictionary of Modern English, 4th ed., London: Routledge & Kegan Paul
7. ^ a b c d e f Merriam-Webster Unabridged Dictionary (2024), online ed., Springfield, Mass.: Merriam-Webster
8. ^ a b c d e Shorter Oxford English Dictionary on Historical Principles (2002), 5th ed., ed. William R. Trumble and Angus Stevenson, Oxford: Oxford University Press
9. ^ a b c Collins English Dictionary (2023), Glasgow: HarperCollins
10. ^ Green, Jonathon (2010), Green's Dictionary of Slang, London: Chambers; digital ed. 2016–, https://greensdictofslang.com