flake

• POS: Noun, Verb (usu participle), Verb (transitive)

CIDE DICTIONARY

flake, n. [Cf. Icel. flaki, fleki, Dan. flage, D. vlaak.].

•  A paling; a hurdle.  [1913 Webster]
•  A platform of hurdles, or small sticks made fast or interwoven, supported by stanchions, for drying codfish and other things.  [1913 Webster]

  "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."  [1913 Webster]
•  A small stage hung over a vessel's side, for workmen to stand on in calking, etc.  [1913 Webster]

flake, n. [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.].

•  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.  Addison.  [1913 Webster]

  "Great flakes of ice encompassing our boat."  [1913 Webster]
•  A little particle of lighted or incandescent matter, darted from a fire; a flash.  [1913 Webster]

  "With flakes of ruddy fire."  [1913 Webster]
•  A sort of carnation with only two colors in the flower, the petals having large stripes.  [1913 Webster]
•  a person who behaves strangely; a flaky{2} person.  [PJC]

Flake knife (Archæol.), a cutting instrument used by savage tribes, made of a flake or chip of hard stone. Tylor. -- Flake stand, the cooling tub or vessel of a still worm. Knight. -- Flake white. (Paint.) (a) The purest white lead, in the form of flakes or scales. (b) The trisnitrate of bismuth. Ure.

flake, n. [Etym. uncertain; cf. 1st Fake.].

 A flat layer, or fake, of a coiled cable.
"Flake after flake ran out of the tubs, until we were compelled to hand the end of our line to the second mate."  [Webster 1913 Suppl.]

flake, v. t. 

 To form into flakes.  Pope.  [1913 Webster]

flake, v. i. 

 To separate in flakes; to peel or scale off.  [1913 Webster]

OXFORD DICTIONARY

flake, n. & v.
--n.
1 a a small thin light piece of snow. b a similar piece of another material.
2 a thin broad piece of material peeled or split off.
3 Archaeol. a piece of hard stone chipped off and used as a tool.
4 a natural division of the flesh of some fish.
5 the dogfish or other shark as food.
--v.tr. & intr. (often foll. by away, off)
1 take off or come away in flakes.
2 sprinkle with or fall in snowlike flakes.

Idiom

flake out colloq. fall asleep or drop from exhaustion; faint.

flake, n.
1 a stage for drying fish etc.
2 a rack for storing oatcakes etc.

Etymology

ME, perh. f. ON flaki, fleki wicker shield

THESAURUS

flake

aliene, arrange in layers, avalanche, band, bar, bedlamite, bespangle, bespeckle, bespot, bit, blizzard, blotch, borderline case, character, check, checker, chip, collapse, crackbrain, crackpot, crank, crystal, dandruff, dapple, delaminate, dement, demoniac, desquamate, dot, driven snow, eccentric, energumen, erratic, exfoliate, fanatic, flake off, fleck, floccule, flocculus, flock, flurry, fou, fragment, freak, freckle, granular snow, harlequin, idiot, igloo, iris, keel over, kook, lamina, laminate, lay down, lay up, layer, loon, loony, lunatic, maculate, madman, maniac, mantle of snow, marble, marbleize, meshuggenah, mogul, motley, mottle, noncompos, nonconformist, nut, oddball, paring, particle, pass out, pepper, phrenetic, piece, polychrome, polychromize, rainbow, raving lunatic, recluse, scale, scale off, scrap, screwball, scurf, shaving, sliver, slosh, slush, snow, snow banner, snow bed, snow blanket, snow blast, snow fence, snow flurry, snow roller, snow slush, snow squall, snow wreath, snow-crystal, snowball, snowbank, snowbridge, snowcap, snowdrift, snowfall, snowfield, snowflake, snowland, snowman, snowscape, snowshed, snowslide, snowslip, snowstorm, spangle, speck, speckle, splotch, spot, sprinkle, stigmatize, stipple, strange duck, stratify, streak, striate, stripe, stud, tattoo, tessellate, tuft, variegate, vein, wafer, weirdo, wet snow

ROGET THESAURUS

flake

Layer

N layer, stratum, strata, course, bed, zone, substratum, substrata, floor, flag, stage, story, tier, slab, escarpment, table, tablet, dess, flagstone, board, plank, trencher, platter, plate, lamina, lamella, sheet, foil, wafer, scale, flake, peel, coat, pellicle, membrane, film, leaf, slice, shive, cut, rasher, shaving, integument, eschar, stratification, scaliness, nest of boxes, coats of an onion, monolayer, bilayer, trilayer, lamellar, lamellated, lamelliform, layered, laminated, laminiferous, micaceous, schistose, schistous, scaly, filmy, membranous, pellicular, flaky, squamous, foliated, foliaceous, stratified, stratiform, tabular, discoid, spathic, spathose, trilamellar, graphitic.