flake

name

1. A surname.

noun

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

1. 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.”

3. A small stage hung over a vessel's side, for workmen to stand on while calking, etc.
4. 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.”

verb

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.

1. To break or chip off in a flake.

   “The paint flaked off after only a year.”

2. 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. To store an item such as rope or sail in layers

   “The line is flaked into the container for easy attachment and deployment.”

4. To hit (another person).
5. 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.”

6. To lay out on a flake for drying.

   “flake a fish”