Wordul · all words

adjective · 2 syllables · /'fleɪ.ki/

FLAKY

What does "FLAKY" mean?

Tending to break into thin flakes, or (informally) unreliable and eccentric.

Meanings

  1. Made of or breaking easily into thin, light layers. The croissant was warm and beautifully flaky.
  2. Unreliable, forgetful, or behaving unpredictably. Don't lend him the car; he's pretty flaky about returning things. informal
  3. Producing inconsistent results, especially of a test or system in software. The CI pipeline keeps failing on a flaky test. technical

Word origin

From 'flake' (probably of Scandinavian origin) plus the adjective suffix '-y'; the 'unreliable person' sense is American slang from the mid-20th century.

Remember it

FLAKY pastry and a FLAKY friend both fall apart when you lean on them.

A little poem

The pastry earns its praise by falling clean apart;
the friend who does the same wins no one's heart.

couplet

Wordplay

  • My baker is flaky in the best way and my cousin is flaky in the worst - one makes croissants, the other breaks plans.

What it teaches

The same texture we prize in a pastry we forgive in no one we are counting on.

Quick facts

What does FLAKY mean?

Tending to break into thin flakes, or (informally) unreliable and eccentric.

Is FLAKY a valid word?

Yes — FLAKY is one of the answer words in Wordul, the daily word game.

How many letters is FLAKY?

FLAKY has 5 letters and 2 syllables.

Where does FLAKY come from?

From 'flake' (probably of Scandinavian origin) plus the adjective suffix '-y'; the 'unreliable person' sense is American slang from the mid-20th century.

What can FLAKY teach us?

The same texture we prize in a pastry we forgive in no one we are counting on.

How players do

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