Green’s Dictionary of Slang

1. (orig. US, also flakeout, flako) a boring, unappealing, incompetent, undesirable person.

1959		R. Russell Permanent Playboy 251: What honesty! What frankness! You’re no flake, Taddie.
1962		J. Blake letter 19 Mar. in Joint (1972) 178: I am not a chronic flakeout, let it not be said that I let the team down.
1969		Current Sl. IV:1 7: Flake, n. A dumbell; one who is not very bright.
1977		C. McFadden Serial 32: He’d taken up with a woman he’d always said he thought was a total flake.
1986		S. King It (1987) 793: Just the fact that Henry let a flako like Patrick Hocksetter hang around.
1986		C. Bowles G’DAY 89: Ardunno. Think I'll take a rain check. Reckon e’s a bit of a flake.
1989		C. Hiaasen Skin Tight 185: The guy was a flake, but who cared.
1992		D. Burke Street Talk 2 17: What a flake!
2006		F.X. Toole Pound for Pound 294: You turn out to be a flake [...] you’re outta here.
2014		(con. 1926) T. McCauley ‘For Whom No Bells Toll’ in ThugLit Mar. [ebook] ‘The rum-soaked ramlblings of a flake’.
2017		hubpages.com ‘Roadman Slang 4 Jun. 🌐 Flake - an unreliable person that ‘flakes’ on any agreed plans.
2020		(con. 1991-94) W. Boyle City of Margins 118: Many of [the girls] are not polite, not to her and not to the residents. Others are just flakes.

2. (US) an eccentric, crazy person.

1968		Time 9 Feb. 34: For kicks, Killy races fast cars and jumps from airplanes; he has tried his hand at bullfighting, and he has a well-deserved reputation as something of a flake.
1977		H. Ellison Flop Sweat in Shatterday (1982) 67: This flake does a good enough job scaring the hell out of me on his own.
1986		C. Hiaasen Tourist Season (1987) 61: He’s also a card-carrying flake.
1990		Eble Campus Sl. Oct. 1: art flake – one who fancies himself or herself very artistic.
2000		Z. Smith White Teeth 32: An assorted company of Hippies, Flakes, Freaks and Funky Folk.

3. (US) a disappointment or failure.

1959		‘Paul Merchant’ ‘Sex Gang’ in Pulling a Train’ (2012) [ebook] Pinch babe with his lech for little girls [...] That working broad was going to have some nights that wedre real flakes.
1961		H. Ellison ‘Memory of a Muted Trumpet’ in Gentleman Junkie 107: Spoof was feeling down. The party was a flake.
1971		N.Y. Times 20 Oct. 36: A flake [...] is the arrest, on known false evidence, of a person for something he did not do.
1986		F. Taylor Auf Wiedersehen Pet Two 49: You don’t have to worry about your Barry. Sound as a bell, he is. I’m a bit of a flake.

4. a worthless or second-rate type.

1993		R. Shell Iced 210: If [...] you should find a flake of a job while waiting for your next hand-to-mouth-out [...] they bleed you.
2021		L. McInerney Rules of Revelation 353: Georgie dubbed Jessica a flake and a witch and an awful eejit.