flaky
/ˈfleɪki
/(also flakey)
adjective (flakier, flakiest)
1Breaking or separating easily into flakes: she ate flaky rolls spread with cherry jam...
- Korean rice is said to be ‘moist and stuck together’ while Chinese rice is ‘separated and flaky.’
- Don't forget to try those mouth watering, flaky, pastry sausage rolls.
- Mature plants, which often grow wider than they grow tall, develop a good framework of stems with flaky fawn bark.
Synonyms
flaking, peeling, cracking, scaly, blistering;
scabrous
technical desquamative, exfoliative, furfuraceous
2 informal Liable to act in an unconventional or eccentric way: a game-show host with a penchant for flaky blondes...
- But until you see it and hold it, it's merely a concept, a flaky idea, something that may happen.
- New ideas, even rather flaky ones, were treated hospitably.
- Venture capitalists are taking lots of heat for making some big bets on some pretty flaky ideas.
2.1(Of a device or software) prone to break down; unreliable.The software is too flaky, and employees keep breaking the screens....
- Perhaps flaky software with little protection against hackers was okay when personal computers were a hobby thing - but today they're the backbone of virtually every business and government on the planet.
- Unfortunately the interface for copying music from my computer to the device was rubbish, the drivers and firmware were flaky, and I could never get it to run properly under Windows 2000.
Derivatives
flakiness
- It refers to increasing amounts of flakiness on the scalp.
- There is a flakiness about Ginger; she is captivating, sexy and vulnerable, but also headstrong and determined not to lose.
- It may even be a positive advantage to have a certain emotional flakiness.