Source etymology 1
Original entry ↗To break or chip off in a flake. · To prove unreliable or impractical; to abandon or desert, to fail to follow through. · To store an item such as rope or sail in layers · To hit (another person).
A loose filmy mass or a thin chiplike layer of anything · A scale of a fish or similar animal · A prehistoric tool chipped out of stone. · A person who is impractical, flighty, unreliable, or inconsistent; especially with maintaining a living.
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.
Relationships mentioned by the source
These are extracted mentions, not a timeline or a verified sequence of immediate parents.
- Inherited-form mentionflakeenm · a flake of snow
- Inherited-form mentionflaccaang
- Derivation mentionflaknon · loose or torn piece
- Cognate mentionflaknanon · to flake or chip
- Derivation mention*flakągem-pro · something flat
- Derivation mention*pleh₂-ine-pro
- Cognate mentionflakno
- Cognate mentionflaksv
- Cognate mentionflageda
- Cognate mentionFlockede
- Cognate mentionvlaknl
- Cognate mentionplagala
- Cognate mentionllechcy
- Doublet mentionplageen
This page abbreviates 6 auxiliary source items. The etymology narrative is not shortened. Omission counts are available in the audit fields below; consult the original for complete auxiliary material.
Inspect preserved source fields
Raw extraction fields are retained for auditing. Their order does not establish ancestry.
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"To prove unreliable or impractical; to abandon or desert, to fail to follow through.",
"To store an item such as rope or sail in layers",
"To hit (another person)."
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