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Flaky   Listen
adjective
Flaky  adj.  
1.
Consisting of flakes or of small, loose masses; lying, or cleaving off, in flakes or layers; flakelike. "What showers of mortal hail, what flaky fires!" "A flaky weight of winter's purest snows."
2.
Prone to strange or erratic behavior; of persons.
3.
Odd, unpredictable or unconventional; offbeat; whacky; of behavior.
4.
Unpredictable, erratic, or unreliable; of machinery, especially electronic devices. "a flaky computer board."






Collaborative International Dictionary of English 0.48








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"Flaky" Quotes from Famous Books



... said,—Holmes saw, stooped much, with a low, hacking cough; his coarse clothes were curiously clean: that was to please Lois, of course. She put the ham on the table, and some bubbling coffee, and then, from a hickory board in front of the fire, took off, with a jerk, brown, flaky ...
— Margret Howth, A Story of To-day • Rebecca Harding Davis

... and grapes all a little the worse for their long journey from New York State to Wyoming, but still things of beauty and a joy as long as they lasted to Wyoming eyes and appetites. We had a perfectly roasted leg of lamb; we had mint sauce, a pyramid of flaky mashed potatoes, a big dish of new peas, a plate of sponge-cake I will be long in forgetting; and the blue jar was full of grape marmalade. Our iced tea was exactly right; the pieces of ice clinked pleasantly ...
— Letters of a Woman Homesteader • Elinore Pruitt Stewart

... flaky graphite and kerosene oil. Apply this as soon as there is any indication of heating ...
— Practical Mechanics for Boys • J. S. Zerbe

... relied on for strength and purity. So many of the baking powders sold contain injurious substances and are altogether unreliable. This powder can be relied on for strength and purity. It produces the most delightfully white, light and flaky biscuits. For cakes it is unsurpassed. Try it and be convinced. This powder is composed of the very best and purest substances, and therefore is perfectly wholesome. Any lady can prepare enough in a few minutes to last her six months. It will only cost a trifle—not one-quarter ...
— The Ladies Book of Useful Information - Compiled from many sources • Anonymous

... wintry winds begin to blow, Then fall the flaky stars of gathering snow, When on the thorn the ripening sloe, yet blue, Takes the bright varnish of the morning dew; The aged moss grows brittle on the pale, The dry boughs splinter in the ...
— Crabbe, (George) - English Men of Letters Series • Alfred Ainger

... the animal may be subject to chills, which may again occur in the course of the disease, in which case, if severe, an unfavorable termination by gangrene may be looked for. If gangrene occurs it is shown by preliminary chills, a rapid elevation of temperature, a tumultuous heart, a flaky discharge from the nostrils, and a fetid breath; the symptoms are identical with those which occur in ...
— Special Report on Diseases of the Horse • United States Department of Agriculture

... hears, Who with his head below the surface dropt, Listens the dreadful murmur indistinct Of the confused seas, and knoweth not Beyond the sound he lists: and then came in O'erhead the white light of the weary moon, Diffused and molten into flaky cloud. Was my sight drunk, that it did shape to me Him who should own that name? or had my fancy So lethargised discernment in the sense, That she did act the step-dame to mine eyes, Warping their nature, till they minister'd Unto her swift conceits? 'Twere better thus If so be that the ...
— The Suppressed Poems of Alfred Lord Tennyson • Alfred Lord Tennyson

... a scream. Sir Lulworth had flung the paper well and truly into the glowing centre of the grate. The small, neat handwriting shrivelled into black flaky nothingness. ...
— Beasts and Super-Beasts • Saki

... and the shellac being quite fluid on both, they may be brought together and clamped tightly together till cool. Shellac that has been overheated, or dissolved in alcohol, or bleached, is of little use as compared with the pale orange flaky product. Dark flakes have probably been overheated during the ...
— On Laboratory Arts • Richard Threlfall

... finished carbide. After decomposition the fine particles of carbon stain the moist lime a bluish grey tint, the depth of shade manifestly depending upon the amount present. If such a sludge is copiously diluted with water, particles of carbon having the appearance and gritty or flaky nature of coke often rise to the surface or fall to the bottom of the liquid; whence they can easily be picked out and identified as pure or impure carbon by simple tests. Similarly the lime or ...
— Acetylene, The Principles Of Its Generation And Use • F. H. Leeds and W. J. Atkinson Butterfield

... moment there was silence before the white ash and the dying heart of the wood, then Rand with the tongs squared a flaky bed and drew from top to bottom a jagged line. "This," he said, "is the great artery; this is the Mississippi River." He drew another line. "Here to the southwest is Mexico, and that is a country for great dreams. There ...
— Lewis Rand • Mary Johnston

... left band he dipped into his side pocket, brought out a loose wheat-straw paper and shifted it to his right hand close by the revolver. Again he dipped, transferring to the paper a pinch of brown, flaky tobacco. Then he proceeded, both hands just over the revolver, ...
— The Night-Born • Jack London

... the nice old lady goat, wanted Lulu and Alice and Jimmie to have a good time, so one day she fixed them up a basket of lunch to take off in the woods and eat. She made some jam tarts—oh, such lovely, flaky ones!—and there were cookies and bread and butter and I don't know what all. I just wish I had that basket of lunch now, don't you? But, of course, we wouldn't want to take it away from the ...
— Lulu, Alice and Jimmie Wibblewobble • Howard R. Garis

... at the board, The cook right at the table, The four of us, a hungry horde, To beat that none is able. A big meat pie, with flaky crust! 'Tis then that joy besets me; Oh, I could eat until I "bust," Those meals ...
— A Heap o' Livin' • Edgar A. Guest

... the whirlwinds keenly blow, Howl through the woods, and pierce the vales below, Through the sharp air a flaky torrent flies, Mocks the slow sight, and hides the ...
— The World's Best Poetry — Volume 10 • Various

... which the recollections of my boyhood, as well as present partialities, give a peculiar magic. How delightful to let the fancy revel on the dainties of a confectioner; those pies, with such white and flaky paste, their contents being a mystery, whether rich mince, with whole plums intermixed, or piquant apple, delicately rose- flavored; those cakes, heart-shaped or round, piled in a lofty pyramid; those sweet little circlets, sweetly named kisses; those dark, majestic masses, ...
— Little Annie's Ramble (From "Twice Told Tales") • Nathaniel Hawthorne

... a tiny vial, containing a few white, flaky crystals. "I shall not need this now," she told herself. "If Lester Stanwick had intended to interfere he would have done so ere this; he has left me to myself, realizing his threats were all in vain; yet I have been sore afraid. Rex will never know that I lied and schemed to win his love, ...
— Daisy Brooks - A Perilous Love • Laura Jean Libbey

... what heights one may ascend in the scale of gastronomic joys in the immediate presence of a baked Carmen. When it is broken open the steam ascends like incense from an altar, while at the magic touch the snowy, flaky substance billows forth upon the plate in a drift that would inspire the pen of a poet. The further preliminaries amount to a ceremony. There can be, there must be no haste. The whole summer lies back of this moment. There on the plate are weeks of golden sunshine, interwoven with the singing of ...
— Reveries of a Schoolmaster • Francis B. Pearson

... or less concave according to circumstances, its deepest part being at the point of the frog. Sloping from this point to its circumference, it becomes suddenly flat just before joining the wall. Its horn in appearance is flaky. ...
— Diseases of the Horse's Foot • Harry Caulton Reeks

... brake and rocks, Are warnings which the shepherd ask To dismal and to dangerous task. Oft he looks forth, and hopes, in vain, The blast may sink in mellowing rain; Till, dark above, and white below, Decided drives the flaky snow, And forth the hardy swain must go. Long, with dejected look and whine, To leave the hearth his dogs repine; Whistling and cheering them to aid, Around his back he wreathes the plaid: His flock he gathers, and he guides, To open downs, and mountain-sides, Where, fiercest though ...
— Marmion: A Tale of Flodden Field • Walter Scott

... women go out at night to spear them by torchlight— the torches being made of thin strips of green bark from the leaf-stalks of palms, tied in bundles. Many excellent kinds of fish are thus obtained; amongst them the Pescada, whose white and flaky flesh, when boiled, has the appearance and flavour of cod-fish; and the Tucunare (Cichla temensis), a handsome species, with a large prettily-coloured, eye-like spot on its tail. Many small Salmonidae ...
— The Naturalist on the River Amazons • Henry Walter Bates

... breed by being flaky, brittle, sharp and nutty, with a crumb that will crumble, and a soft, mouth-watering pale orange color ...
— The Complete Book of Cheese • Robert Carlton Brown

... grate some potatoes or cabbage leaves to a pulp and separate the juice, then heat the clear juice, a substance will separate in a flaky form and settle to the bottom of the liquid. This is ...
— The First Book of Farming • Charles L. Goodrich

... She ran to the landing and brought in a large tray, neatly spread with food. "It isn't leavings," she explained, placing the dishes before him; "Eliza Jane's cooking is for company, mine for Davy and me! I made the biscuits myself. Aren't they flaky?" ...
— Janet of the Dunes • Harriet T. Comstock

... streets now the June snow fell, not the soft and flaky petals of the North, but a bitter steel-like snow, that whirled. And the winds of the pampas hurried like Furies through the sordid streets, and stopped to snarl, as a dog snarls, and now moaned, and now howled sharply, as a wolf howls. There was something ...
— The Wind Bloweth • Brian Oswald Donn-Byrne

... covered with a cloth as white and spotless as good linen can well be. The bread was genuine homemade, a term so often misused in the cities. It was brown as to crust, and flaky and light as to interior. The butter, cool from the rock cellar, was of a refreshing yellow hue. The sight of the well-loaded table was most welcome to the eyes of hungry travelers. There was, as Yates afterward remarked, "abundance, and ...
— In the Midst of Alarms • Robert Barr

... time we had finished our flaky fare and sipped our chocolate from the Magdalena, Night announced herself,—Night, a jealous, dark lady, eclipsed and made invisible all her rivals, that she might solely possess us. Night's whispers lulled us. The rippling river, the rustling ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 10, No. 62, December, 1862 • Various

... may turn out delicious, flaky pastry if she will but follow directions carefully. First of all, let us study for a minute just what pastry is. It is a mixture of flour, shortening and water. Each grain of flour is thoroughly coated with shortening and then mixed ...
— Mrs. Wilson's Cook Book - Numerous New Recipes Based on Present Economic Conditions • Mary A. Wilson

... and wondrous birth, Jove's sceptred sons and demigods of earth. High on the sacred tree, the glittering prize Hangs o'er its guard, and tires the warriors' eyes; First their hurl'd spears his spiral folds assail, Their spears fall pointless from his flaky mail; Onward with dauntless swords they plunge amain; He shuns their blows, recoils his twisting train, Darts forth his forky tongue, heaves high in air His fiery crest, and sheds a hideous glare, Champs, churns his poisonous juice, and hissing loud Spouts thick the stifling tempest ...
— The Columbiad • Joel Barlow

... one-half cup of lard, one-half teaspoon salt, one-fourth cup ice cold water, one teaspoon baking powder. Mix salt, baking powder and flour thoroughly, chop in the lard, add water. Use as little flour as possible when rolling out. This makes a light, crisp, flaky and ...
— The Suffrage Cook Book • L. O. Kleber

... curious words in cipher code after each one. In the same pocket was a long, flat parcel. Dexter handed it to the captain who opened it gingerly. Inside the officer found at least twenty-five small packets, all wrapped in white paper. He opened two of these. They contained a flaky, white powder. ...
— Traffic in Souls - A Novel of Crime and Its Cure • Eustace Hale Ball

... Somaliland, led us, after an hour's ride, to the Wady Duntu, a gigantic mountain-cleft formed by the violent action of torrents. The chasm winds abruptly between lofty walls of syenite and pink granite, glittering with flaky mica, and streaked with dykes and veins of snowy quartz: the strata of the sandstones that here and there projected into the bed were wonderfully twisted around a central nucleus, as green boughs might be bent about a tree. Above, the hill-tops towered in the air, here denuded of vegetable ...
— First footsteps in East Africa • Richard F. Burton

... during our journey through the pack. The wind blew strong from the west and from the east; the sky was often darkly overcast; we had snowstorms, flaky snow, and even light rain. In all such circumstances we were better placed in the pack than outside of it. The foulest weather could do us little harm. During quite a large percentage of days, however, we had bright sunshine, which, even with the temperature well below freezing, made everything ...
— The Worst Journey in the World, Volumes 1 and 2 - Antarctic 1910-1913 • Apsley Cherry-Garrard

... of the dark-brown hair. She fell in Balclutha, for I have seen her ghost. I knew her as she came through the dusky night, along the murmur of Lora: she was like the new moon, seen through the gathered mist, when the sky pours down its flaky snow, and the world is silent and dark. 'Raise, ye bards,' said the mighty Fingal, 'the praise of unhappy Moina. Call her ghost, with your songs, to our hills, that she may rest with the fair of Morven, the sunbeams of other days, the delight ...
— The Mysteries of All Nations • James Grant

... Shivering, yet regardless of the snow that began to fall thickly, he kept his post, staring, staring in drear fascination across the Fjord, where the Valkyrie drifted, now a mass of flame blown fiercely by the wind, and gleaming red through the flaky snow-storm. ...
— Thelma • Marie Corelli

... or light gray, on very old trees ash-white; not as flaky as the bark of the red spruce, the scales smaller and more closely appressed; young trees and small branches much smoother, pale reddish-brown or mottled brown and gray, resembling the fir balsam; branchlets glabrous; shoots from which the leaves have fallen marked by the ...
— Handbook of the Trees of New England • Lorin Low Dame

... began, 'have ever pictured that when Arthur—cannot overcome it pray excuse me—was restored to freedom even a pie as far from flaky as the present and so deficient in kidney as to be in that respect like a minced nutmeg might not prove unacceptable if offered by the hand of true regard such visions have for ever fled and all is cancelled but being aware that tender ...
— Little Dorrit • Charles Dickens

... grateful and acceptable. He went himself to the kitchen, which was a building apart from the cottages and lying to the rear of the house. And he himself brought her the golden-brown bouillon, in a dainty Sevres cup, with a flaky cracker or two ...
— The Awakening and Selected Short Stories • Kate Chopin

... grass-blade, separate and distinct, that grew about their feet. And it showed three white, startled faces, too. A deep peal of thunder went rolling and tumbling down the heavens and lost itself in sullen rumblings in the distance. A sweep of chilly air passed by, rustling all the leaves and snowing the flaky ashes broadcast about the fire. Another fierce glare lit up the forest and an instant crash followed that seemed to rend the tree-tops right over the boys' heads. They clung together in terror, in the thick gloom that followed. A few big rain-drops ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain

... pick them in flaky pieces as much as possible; remove the meat from the claws and the fat from the back. Reserve some of the nicest pieces and put them aside for the soup after it is done. Boil a chicken or veal bone; put it into ...
— Favorite Dishes • Carrie V. Shuman

... watching man was upon his feet. His whole face was transfigured. Alertness was in every movement, in every flash of his great eyes. He moved quickly across the floor of the hut and took two shallow pannikins from the sack which lay upon the floor, dropped some of the flaky weed into the bottom of each one, and then from the stove he scraped some coals of fire into them. The fire set the dry weed smouldering, and the thick smoke rose heavily from the two tins. These he placed upon the ground in such a position that his hard-breathing ...
— The Hound From The North • Ridgwell Cullum

... and the wind was dying. In the sky was a little silvery break, and by its light flaky clouds were seen hurrying away, all in one direction like a flock of birds. It seemed as if they might be fleeing quietly from the wreck which they ...
— Tom Slade's Double Dare • Percy Keese Fitzhugh

... lady's idea of an appropriate gift was open to criticism, but not so her pie. That was rich perfection. Its fruity, spicy interior was evenly warmed with an evident old French brandy,—no savagely burning cooking brandy, mind,—and when the flaky marvel had stood upon the heater for a time, even before its cutting up with a paper-knife, the odour of goose grease was lost in the "Araby the Blest" ...
— Stage Confidences • Clara Morris

... to be eliminated before the material is fit for use in the mash-tun. After degerming, the maize is unhusked, wetted, submitted to a temperature sufficient to rupture the starch cells, dried, and finally rolled out in a flaky condition. ...
— Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th Edition, Volume 4, Part 3 - "Brescia" to "Bulgaria" • Various

... spotless white bowing before us. We gladly accept and go below, where we find other Chinamen gliding about in felt slippers serving hot baked buckwheat cakes and maple syrup; the cakes are beautifully flaky and about the size of a saucer; we soon dispose of them and some decent coffee too, and return to the deck quickly not to ...
— Round the Wonderful World • G. E. Mitton

... hops, and run the wort on them; when placed in the copper, and in a state of ebullition, infuse the whole of the other ingredients. Let it boil about one hour, or till you discover the surface of the liquor to become flaky, and the wort broken; then take it from the copper and strain it into the coolers. Now proceed in the usual way till it be fit to rack, which will be in about a fortnight; draw it off into another ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction, Vol. 10, - Issue 269, August 18, 1827 • Various

... where the pastures of Switzerland, and poplar valleys of France, and dark forests of the Danube and Carpathians stretch from the mouths of the Loire to those of the Volga, seen through clefts in grey swirls of rain-cloud and flaky veils of the mist of the brooks, spreading low along the pasture lands: and then, farther north still, to see the earth heave into mighty masses of leaden rock and heathy moor, bordering with a broad waste of gloomy purple that belt of ...
— The Stones of Venice, Volume II (of 3) • John Ruskin

... dinner deserving of the time given up to it. Following a vegetable soup the Moro bore in a great lapu-lapu, fresh from the Straits: if you have never tasted the flaky substance of a lapu-lapu,—don't! For once you do, you will be forever impatient of the quality of all other fish. Roast duck followed, with sweet corn, camotes, tart roselle sauce, a papaya salad, an ice, and pili nuts; all perfectly prepared, and flawlessly served by the expressionless ...
— Terry - A Tale of the Hill People • Charles Goff Thomson

... mosque they ascended the hill and passed the Tekkeh of the dancing dervishes. All around them were the Turkish graves with their leaning headstones, or their headstones fallen and lying prone in the light flaky earth above the smoldering corpses of the dead. Here and there tight bunches of flowers were placed upon the graves. Gaunt shadows from old cypresses fell over some of them, defining the sunlight. Below was the narrowing sea, the shallow north-west arm of the Golden Horn, which stretches ...
— In the Wilderness • Robert Hichens

... wish for them. But she made some of her "griddles trimmed with lace," as only Barbara's griddles were trimmed; the brown lightness running out at the edges into crisp filigree. And another time it was the flaky spider-cake, turned just as it blushed golden-tawny over the coals; and then it was breakfast potato, beaten almost frothy with one white-of-egg, a pretty good bit of butter, a few spoonfuls of top-of-the-milk, and seasoned plentifully with salt, and delicately with ...
— We Girls: A Home Story • Mrs. A. D. T. Whitney

... a hard, woody drupe, containing small seeds. TIMONIUS RUMPHII, belonging to the same Family, but of more frequent occurrence, bears small white flowers and globular fruit. The white, finely grained wood is said to resemble English sycamore. Though harsh and flaky, the surface of the bark seems to retain moisture, making it attractive to several species of fungi and epiphytal ferns, the most conspicuous of the latter being the stag's-horn. Few of the trees near the beach are ...
— Tropic Days • E. J. Banfield

... cupboard, he took out a tiny figure some two inches long by one inch high, mounted upon a polished wooden pedestal. It was that of a guinea-pig. The flaky fur gleamed like the finest silk, and one felt that the coat of the minute creature would be as floss to the touch; whereas in reality it possessed the rigidity of steel. Literally one could have done it little damage with a ...
— Tales of Chinatown • Sax Rohmer

... crossing again the breezy yard, entered a dismal brick-paved basement-room, where grim bakers were attending upon a number of huge ovens. One of these was just being filled; but instead of white and brown loaves, golden cake, or flaky pies, the two attendants were piling in short, thick bars of lead, and, hurry as they might, before they could put in the last of the appointed number, little shining streams of molten metal began to ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 14, No. 83, September, 1864 • Various

... so fine as to be mere dust, are all the available material for road-making. I am told that later on I shall find that a cartload of sand in Maritzburg is indeed a rare and costly thing: there we are all rock, a sort of flaky, slaty rock underlying every place. Our last day, or rather half day, in D'Urban was very full of sightseeing and work. F—— was extremely anxious for me to see the sun rise from the signal-station on the bluff, and accordingly he, G—— and I started ...
— Lippincott's Magazine, Vol. XVII, No. 99, March, 1876 • Various

... right-hand man. "I have never noticed when I have dined at the Sumadija or the Dva Ribara, that the waiters have been surly. And only last week I enjoyed cigansko pecenje, gypsy roast, followed by a very flaky cherry strudla, at the Gradski Podrum. The ...
— Expediter • Dallas McCord Reynolds

... romanticism than he would care to admit, though the Elizabethan ideal which he cherished and his own power of concentration did much to subdue and chasten the insubordinate, vaguely aspiring spirit which in lesser Celtic poets turns to froth, with no undercurrent of human truth to give significance to its flaky beauty. Fiona Macleod is the classic instance of this frothy Celtic spirit which is unstayed by human truth or relevance to life; and there is much of this in contemporary Irish poetry. Mr. Yeats is not wholly free from ...
— Personality in Literature • Rolfe Arnold Scott-James

... conception to stand in the shade of some wavy verdure of the valley wiping off the unbidden perspiration from the brow, and, at the same instant, look upon a darkly threatening storm-cloud powdering the heads of the hoary monster mountains from its freight of flaky snow. So far these American giant mountains are unsurpassed by their Alpine neighbors of Europe. Not so in the glaciers. Throughout the great range, there are none of those beautiful glaciers to be found that ...
— The Life and Adventures of Kit Carson, the Nestor of the Rocky Mountains, from Facts Narrated by Himself • De Witt C. Peters

... home, never knowin' what I was a-stirrin' up for myself, I turned in an' made a chicken an' oyster pie, an' it couldn't be beat, not if I do say it as shouldn't. The crust was as soft an' flaky an' brown an' crisp at the edges as any I ever turned out, an' the inside was all chicken an' oysters well-nigh smothered in a ...
— At the Sign of the Jack O'Lantern • Myrtle Reed

... of six and eight feet. The ducks were exceedingly wild—something not easily accounted for in that untroubled and uninhabited country; but we were readily able to reinforce our staple supplies with juicy birds and flaky fish broiled over a lively fire or baked under the ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, Vol. 26, September 1880 • Various



Words linked to "Flaky" :   off-the-wall, unconventional, flake, outlandish, freaky, bizarre, outre, freakish, flakey



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