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flake

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English has two main words spelled flake: a hurdle or drying rack, probably from Old Norse, and a thin piece or snowflake, of uncertain, probably Scandinavian origin.[1][2][3]

Pronunciation

  • UK: /fleɪk/[4]

flake1 hurdle, drying rack

Etymology

The hurdle is inherited from Middle English fleke, also flake and fleike,[5][2][6] probably borrowed from Old Norse flaki, also fleki (“hurdle, wicker shield”);[1][2][6][7] the Shorter Oxford and the Oxford Dictionary of English call the Norse origin only possible.[3][8] It corresponds to Danish flage (“hurdle”), Middle Dutch vlāke (“hurdle”), whose modern Dutch form vlaak is a hurdle on which wool is beaten, and Middle Low German flake (“a kind of fishing net”).[1][9][7] The OED thinks the senses point to a root meaning "to plait", but finds a link with Proto-Germanic *flehtaną (“to plait”) phonologically difficult, and takes Latin plaga (“net”) as probably cognate.[1] Merriam-Webster relates the word to Old English flōc (“flounder”), Old Saxon flaka (“sole of the foot”) and Old High German flah (“smooth”),[2] Klein connects it with flake2,[7] and the American Heritage Dictionary traces it to Proto-Indo-European *plāk-.[6]

Earliest recorded meaning

A hurdle of wattled work: in 1323 the accounts of the chamber of Edward II, written in French, record six flakes of rods bought for use.[5] The OED's first English quotation is from about 1330, in Robert Mannyng's Chronicle.[1]

Semantic evolution

From the woven hurdle, used for fences and also as a temporary gate (about 1514),[1][5] the word passed to other frames of sticks or boards: a rack for storing food, about 1420, in the Middle English Palladius, later especially for oatcakes;[1][3] a stage or frame for drying fish or other produce, from 1623, in Richard Whitbourne's account of Newfoundland;[1][2] and in lead mining a framework of boards sheltering against wind and rain (1653).[1][3] A flap on a saddle was also called a flake in 1568.[1] In Scotland, Ireland and northern and western England flake (also fleak, fleke, vlake) was still a hurdle or a gate of wands at the end of the 19th century.[10]

Timeline

  • 1323 – a wattled hurdle, in the accounts of the chamber of Edward II.[5] The OED's first quotation is from about 1330.[1]
  • c. 1420 – a frame or rack for storing provisions.[1][3]
  • c. 1514 – a hurdle used as a temporary gate.[1]
  • 1623 – a stage or frame for drying fish.[1][2]
  • 1653 – in mining, a framework of boards used as a shelter.[1]

Meanings

Noun

  1. A rack, platform or tray for drying fish or other produce.[2][1][3]
  2. A frame or rack for storing provisions, especially oatcakes.[1][3][2]
  3. (dialect) A hurdle or movable section of fence, sometimes used as a gate.[2][1][3][10]
  4. (mining) A framework of boards sheltering a working against wind and rain.[2][1][3]

flake2 thin piece, snowflake

Etymology

The thin piece is inherited from Middle English flake, also flauke, flagge and flage,[5][11] of uncertain origin.[1][11][12][3] Barnhart, Klein and Merriam-Webster think it probably borrowed from Old Norse flak (“loose or torn piece”) or another Scandinavian word,[13][7][2][11] while Etymonline also allows an unrecorded Old English *flacca (“flakes of snow”),[11][13] which Junius cited but which is not found in Old English texts.[13][1] Hoad and the Shorter Oxford compare Norwegian flak (“patch, flake; disc, floe”), Swedish isflak (“ice floe”) and flakna (“to flake off, split”),[12][3][2] and the MED and Merriam-Webster's Collegiate compare flacor (“flying (of arrows)”).[5][9][13] Etymonline traces the Norse word to Proto-Germanic *flaką,[11][4] which is also the source of Middle Dutch vlac, Dutch vlak (“flat, level”) and Middle High German vlach,[11][7] and to Proto-Indo-European *plāk- (“to be flat”).[11][6] The OED thinks several words may have merged in it, compares flóki (“flock of wool, lock of hair”) for the snow sense and flay for the sense "something peeled off",[1] and Ayto relates it to flaw, floe and the flag that is a stone slab.[14] Weekley derived it instead from Latin floccus (“tuft of wool”).[15]

The informal noun for an eccentric or unreliable person is a back-formation from flaky,[11][16][17] though Merriam-Webster's Collegiate takes it as perhaps from flake out.[9] The OED compares that verb at the slang sense of the adjective, and derives the verb itself, to faint or fall asleep from exhaustion, as a variant of an obsolete verb flack and of the verb flag, to droop;[1][3][8] Merriam-Webster's Unabridged takes it as probably from this noun.[2]

Earliest recorded meaning

A flake of snow: before 1325, in English glosses to Bibbesworth's French treatise, which render a French phrase as a flake of snowe.[5][13] Etymonline dates the word to the early 14th century,[11] and the OED's first quotation is from Chaucer's Hous of Fame, about 1384.[1]

Semantic evolution

Already in Middle English a flake was also a speck or spot (late 14th century) and a piece of burning matter thrown off by a fire, as in the poem Cleanness of about 1400.[11][5][1][12] The sense "a small flat fragment, a scale" is recorded from about 1525, a thin piece split off a surface from 1591, later especially a chip of stone used as a tool in prehistoric times, and a sheet of floating ice from 1555.[1] The King James Bible (1611) used flakes of the layers into which the flesh of a fish falls apart.[1] The verb, first of snow falling in flakes, is from the noun, recorded before 1420 in Lydgate's Troy Book;[13][11][1] it was used transitively for "to cover with flakes" from 1602,[1][2] for "to break or rub off in flakes" from the 1620s,[11][1] and intransitively for "to come off in flakes" from 1759 or 1760.[11][1] Johnson (1755) explained a flake as anything loosely held together, like a flock of wool.[18] In the 20th century the word was applied to cocaine (1911),[16] to dogfish sold as food (1906),[1][2] and, short for cornflakes, to breakfast cereal (1951).[1] The slang adjective flaky, said of an eccentric person, began in American baseball talk about 1959,[11][16] and the noun flake for such a person followed;[16][11][9] the American Heritage Dictionary also records it for someone who cannot be relied on to keep appointments.[6] The phrasal verb flake out, to collapse or fall asleep from exhaustion, is recorded from 1939 or 1942.[2][1] In Ireland and Australia flake meant to beat or thrash from 1841.[16][1][10]

Timeline

  • before 1325 – a flake of snow.[5][13] The OED's first quotation is from about 1384, in Chaucer.[1]
  • late 14th century – a speck or spot.[11][5]
  • c. 1400 – a piece of burning matter thrown off by a fire.[1][12]
  • before 1420 – verb, of snow, to fall in flakes.[13][11]
  • c. 1525 – a small scale or flat fragment.[1]
  • 1555 – a sheet of floating ice, a floe.[1]
  • 1591 – a thin piece split off a surface, later a stone chip used as a prehistoric tool.[1]
  • 1602 – verb, to cover with or as with flakes.[1][2]
  • 1620s – verb, to break or peel off in flakes.[11]
  • 1759 – verb, to come off in flakes.[11][1]
  • 1906 – a name for dogfish sold as food.[1]
  • 1911 – cocaine.[16]
  • 1939 – flake out, to collapse or fall asleep from exhaustion.[2] The OED's first quotation is from 1942.[1]
  • 1951 – flakes, cornflakes.[1]
  • 1959 – an eccentric or unreliable person.[16] Merriam-Webster dates it to 1964 and Etymonline to 1968.[9][11]

Meanings

Noun

  1. A small, thin, flat piece of something, especially one broken or peeled off a surface: flakes of rust on the railing.[19][2][6]
  2. A snowflake, or any small loose bit like one.[19][2][1]
  3. (archaeology) A fragment struck from a larger stone, used as a tool or as the blank for one.[19][6][1]
  4. A thin layer or stratum.[19][1]
  5. Usually in the plural, small pieces of crushed, dried food, such as cereal or fish food.[8][1]
  6. (informal, chiefly North American) An eccentric person, or one who cannot be relied on.[6][8][16][9]
  7. (slang) Cocaine.[6][16]
  8. (British) Dogfish sold as food.[2][1]

Verb

  1. To come off in flakes; to peel: The old varnish had flaked off the door.[19][2][1]
  2. To break into flakes: Flake the cooked salmon with a fork.[2][19]
  3. To cover with flakes, or with something like them.[2][1]
  4. To chip flakes from a stone, as in making flint tools.[2][1]
  5. flake out (informal): to fall asleep or collapse from exhaustion.[2][1][3]

Word family

  • flaker
  • flakeless
  • flakelet
  • flaky
  • snowflake
  • flake white
  • flake out
  • flakeboard
  • cornflake

References

  1. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m n o p q r s t u v w x y z 27 28 29 30 31 32 33 34 35 36 37 38 39 40 41 42 43 44 45 46 47 48 49 50 51 52 53 54 Oxford English Dictionary Online (accessed March 2026), Oxford: Oxford University Press
  2. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m n o p q r s t u v w x y z Merriam-Webster Unabridged Dictionary (2024), online ed., Springfield, Mass.: Merriam-Webster
  3. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m Shorter Oxford English Dictionary on Historical Principles (2002), 5th ed., ed. William R. Trumble and Angus Stevenson, Oxford: Oxford University Press
  4. ^ a b Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
  5. ^ a b c d e f g h i j Kurath, Hans; Kuhn, Sherman M.; Lewis, Robert E., eds. (1952–2001), Middle English Dictionary, Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press; online edition ed. Frances McSparran et al. (2000–2018)
  6. ^ a b c d e f g h i The American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language (online 2024), 5th ed., Boston: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt
  7. ^ a b c d e Klein, Ernest. A Comprehensive Etymological Dictionary of the English Language. 2 vols. Amsterdam: Elsevier, 1966–1967.
  8. ^ a b c d Stevenson, Angus, ed. (2010), Oxford Dictionary of English, 3rd ed., Oxford: Oxford University Press
  9. ^ a b c d e f Merriam-Webster's Collegiate Dictionary (2003), 11th ed., Springfield, Mass.: Merriam-Webster
  10. ^ a b c Wright, Joseph, ed. (1898–1905), The English Dialect Dictionary, 6 vols., Oxford: Henry Frowde; via EDD Online 4.0, University of Innsbruck (CC BY 4.0)
  11. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m n o p q r s t Harper, Douglas. Online Etymology Dictionary, https://www.etymonline.com
  12. ^ a b c d Hoad, T. F., ed. (1986), The Concise Oxford Dictionary of English Etymology, Oxford: Clarendon Press
  13. ^ a b c d e f g h Barnhart, Robert K. (1988), The Barnhart Dictionary of Etymology
  14. ^ Ayto, John (2005), Word Origins: The Secret Histories of English Words from A to Z, 2nd ed., London: A & C Black
  15. ^ Weekley, Ernest (1921), An Etymological Dictionary of Modern English, London: John Murray
  16. ^ a b c d e f g h i Green, Jonathon (2010), Green's Dictionary of Slang, London: Chambers; digital ed. 2016–, https://greensdictofslang.com
  17. ^ Dictionary.com Unabridged (2016), based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, New York: Random House
  18. ^ Johnson, Samuel (1755), A Dictionary of the English Language, London; 4th ed. 1773; Johnson's Dictionary Online, ed. Beth Rapp Young et al.
  19. ^ a b c d e f Collins English Dictionary (2023), Glasgow: HarperCollins