Flaky

//ˈfleɪkiː// adj, slang

adj, slang ·Common ·High school level

Definitions

Adjective
  1. 1
    Consisting of flakes or of small, loose masses; lying, or cleaving off, in flakes or layers; flakelike.
  2. 2
    Unreliable; likely to make plans with others but then abandon those plans. informal

    "I have noticed that when hustlers upgrade themselves to models (as distinguished from models who have never hustled) they tend to continue being flaky about appointments. On my last trip to San Juan, Puerto Rico, I was stood up twice."

  3. 3
    Unreliable; working only on an intermittent basis; likely due to malfunction. informal

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

Adjective
  1. 1
    conspicuously or grossly unconventional or unusual wordnet
  2. 2
    made of or easily forming flakes wordnet
  3. 3
    made of or resembling flakes wordnet

Synonyms

All synonyms
abnormalanomalousapisharbitraryasinineasperous

Example

More examples

"To be good, pâte brisée should be light and flaky."

Etymology

From flake + -y.

Related phrases

flaky pastry

More for "flaky"

SynonymsSentencesPronunciationTranslate

Next best steps

Find stronger synonymsSee usage examplesCheck pronunciationBrowse writing guides

Data sourced from Wiktionary, WordNet, CMU, and other open linguistic databases. Updated March 2026.