Noah Webster's Dictionary 1. (n.) A paling; a hurdle. 2. (n.) A platform of hurdles, or small sticks made fast or interwoven, supported by stanchions, for drying codfish and other things. 3. (n.) A small stage hung over a vessel's side, for workmen to stand on in calking, etc. 4. (n.) A loose filmy mass or a thin chip like layer of anything; a film; flock; lamina; layer; scale; as, a flake of snow, tallow, or fish. 5. (n.) A little particle of lighted or incandescent matter, darted from a fire; a flash. 6. (n.) A sort of carnation with only two colors in the flower, the petals having large stripes. 7. (v. t.) To form into flakes. 8. (v. i.) To separate in flakes; to peel or scale off. Int. Standard Bible Encyclopedia FLAKE flak (mappal, a word of uncertain meaning): It is used in the sense of "refuse (husks) of the wheat" in Amos 8:6. With regard to the body we find it used in Job 41:23 in the description of leviathan (the crocodile): "The flakes of his flesh are joined together: they are firm upon him; they cannot be moved." Baethgen in Kautzsch's translation of the Old Testament translates "Wampen," i.e. the collops or lateral folds of flesh and armored skin. A better translation would perhaps be: "the horny epidermic scales" of the body, differentiated from the bony dermal scutes of the back (Hebrew "channels of shields," "courses of scales"), which are mentioned in Job 41:15 margin. H. L. E. Luering