Library / English Dictionary

FLAKE

Pronunciation (US):

(GB):

 I. (noun) 

Sense 1

Meaning:

A small fragment of something broken off from the whole

Example:

a bit of rock caught him in the eye

Synonyms:

bit; chip; flake; fleck; scrap

Classified under:

Nouns denoting natural objects (not man-made)

Hypernyms ("flake" is a kind of...):

fragment (a piece broken off or cut off of something else)

Hyponyms (each of the following is a kind of "flake"):

matchwood (fragments of wood)

exfoliation; scale; scurf (a thin flake of dead epidermis shed from the surface of the skin)

scurf ((botany) a covering that resembles scales or bran that covers some plant parts)

sliver; splinter (a small thin sharp bit or wood or glass or metal)

Derivation:

flake (come off in flakes or thin small pieces)

flakey; flaky (made of or resembling flakes)

Sense 2

Meaning:

A person with an unusual or odd personality

Synonyms:

eccentric; eccentric person; flake; geek; oddball

Classified under:

Nouns denoting people

Hypernyms ("flake" is a kind of...):

individual; mortal; person; somebody; someone; soul (a human being)

Hyponyms (each of the following is a kind of "flake"):

crackpot; crank; fruitcake; nut; nut case; screwball (a whimsically eccentric person)

nutter; wacko; whacko (a person who is regarded as eccentric or mad)

Sense 3

Meaning:

A crystal of snow

Synonyms:

flake; snowflake

Classified under:

Nouns denoting natural phenomena

Hypernyms ("flake" is a kind of...):

crystal (a solid formed by the solidification of a chemical and having a highly regular atomic structure)

Meronyms (substance of "flake"):

H2O; water (binary compound that occurs at room temperature as a clear colorless odorless tasteless liquid; freezes into ice below 0 degrees centigrade and boils above 100 degrees centigrade; widely used as a solvent)

Holonyms ("flake" is a part of...):

snow; snowfall (precipitation falling from clouds in the form of ice crystals)

Holonyms ("flake" is a substance of...):

snow (a layer of snowflakes (white crystals of frozen water) covering the ground)

 II. (verb) 

Sense 1

Meaning:

Come off in flakes or thin small pieces

Example:

The paint in my house is peeling off

Synonyms:

flake; flake off; peel; peel off

Classified under:

Verbs of touching, hitting, tying, digging

Hypernyms (to "flake" is one way to...):

break away; break off; chip; chip off; come off (break off (a piece from a whole))

Sentence frame:

Something ----s

Derivation:

flake (a small fragment of something broken off from the whole)

Sense 2

Meaning:

Cover with flakes or as if with flakes

Classified under:

Verbs of touching, hitting, tying, digging

Hypernyms (to "flake" is one way to...):

cover (provide with a covering or cause to be covered)

Sentence frame:

Somebody ----s something

Sense 3

Meaning:

Form into flakes

Example:

The substances started to flake

Classified under:

Verbs of touching, hitting, tying, digging

Hypernyms (to "flake" is one way to...):

form (assume a form or shape)

Sentence frame:

Somebody ----s

Credits

 Context examples: 

He had gone beyond the sweep—some way along the Highbury road—the snow was nowhere above half an inch deep—in many places hardly enough to whiten the ground; a very few flakes were falling at present, but the clouds were parting, and there was every appearance of its being soon over.

(Emma, by Jane Austen)

The team determined that lithium insertion caused an asymmetry in the spacing between vanadium atoms, known as Peierls distortion, which was responsible for the breakup of the VS2 flakes.

(Creating Better Lithium-Ion Batteries Made Possible with New Discovery, The Titi Tudorancea Bulletin)

Jane is not such a weakling as you would make her, he would say: she can bear a mountain blast, or a shower, or a few flakes of snow, as well as any of us.

(Jane Eyre, by Charlotte Brontë)

The cold, however, was severe; and by the time the second carriage was in motion, a few flakes of snow were finding their way down, and the sky had the appearance of being so overcharged as to want only a milder air to produce a very white world in a very short time.

(Emma, by Jane Austen)

The sand, the sea-weed, and the flakes of foam, were driving by; and I was obliged to call for assistance before I could shut the gate again, and make it fast against the wind.

(David Copperfield, by Charles Dickens)

It was as though my memories of all Jonathan's horrid experience were befooling me; for the snow flakes and the mist began to wheel and circle round, till I could get as though a shadowy glimpse of those women that would have kissed him.

(Dracula, by Bram Stoker)

The sun lay low in the west upon a purple cloud, whence it threw a mild, chastening light over the wild moorland and glittered on the fringe of forest turning the withered leaves into flakes of dead gold, the brighter for the black depths behind them.

(The White Company, by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle)