flaky

English

Alternative forms

• flakey

Etymology

flake +‎ -y (“having the quality of”)

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): /ˈfleɪkiː/

• Audio (US):

  (file)

• Rhymes: -eɪki

Adjective

flaky (comparative flakier, superlative flakiest)

1. Consisting of flakes or of small, loose masses; lying, or cleaving off, in flakes or layers; flakelike.
2. (informal, of a person) Unreliable; likely to make plans with others but then abandon those plans.
3. (informal, of a thing) Unreliable; working only on an intermittent basis; likely to malfunction.
   • 2011 September 16, Ben Dirs, “Rugby World Cup 2011: New Zealand 83-7 Japan”, in BBC Sport‎^[1]:

     Toeava went over unopposed to stretch his side's lead but Japan got on the scoreboard on 56 minutes, wing Hirotoki Onozawa intercepting an attempted offload from Slade, who had a rather flaky game, and running in from the All Blacks' 10m line.

   I cannot enjoy the online game because of my flaky Internet connection.

Derived terms

• flakily

Translations

Consisting of flakes; lying, or cleaving off, in flakes; flakelike

• Bulgarian: люспест (ljuspest)
• Dutch: vlokkig (nl)
• Finnish: hiutalemainen, hilseilevä
• German: flockig; blättrig (de)
• (deprecated template usage) {{trans-mid}}
• Greek: λεπιοειδής m or f (lepioeidís), φολιδοειδής m or f (folidoeidís)
• Russian: хлопьевидный (ru) (xlopʹjevidnyj)

of a person: unreliable

• Finnish: epäluotettava (fi), häilähtelevä, ailahteleva
• French: lâcheur (fr) m
• German: unzuverlässig
• (deprecated template usage) {{trans-mid}}
• Greek: αλλοπρόσαλλος (el) m (alloprósallos)
• Maori: māhunga wai
• Russian: ненадёжный (ru) (nenadjóžnyj), ветреный (ru) (vetrenyj)