From The Collaborative International Dictionary of English v.0.48 [gcide]:
Flaky \Flak"y\, a.
1. Consisting of flakes or of small, loose masses; lying, or
cleaving off, in flakes or layers; flakelike.
[1913 Webster]
What showers of mortal hail, what flaky fires!
--Watts.
[1913 Webster]
A flaky weight of winter's purest snows.
--Wordsworth.
[1913 Webster]
2. prone to strange or erratic behavior; -- of persons.
[PJC]
3. odd, unpredictable or unconventional; offbeat; whacky; --
of behavior.
[PJC]
4. unpredictable, erratic, or unreliable; -- of machinery,
especially electronic devices. "a flaky computer board."
[PJC]
From WordNet (r) 3.0 (2006) [wn]:
flaky
adj 1: made of or resembling flakes; "flaky soap" [syn: flaky,
flakey]
2: made of or easily forming flakes [syn: flaky, flakey]
3: conspicuously or grossly unconventional or unusual;
"restaurants of bizarre design--one like a hat, another like
a rabbit"; "famed for his eccentric spelling"; "a freakish
combination of styles"; "his off-the-wall antics"; "the
outlandish clothes of teenagers"; "outre and affected stage
antics" [syn: bizarre, eccentric, freakish, freaky,
flaky, flakey, gonzo, off-the-wall, outlandish,
outre]
From The Free On-line Dictionary of Computing (8 July 2008) [foldoc]:
flaky
(Or "flakey") Subject to frequent lossage. This use is of
course related to the common slang use of the word to describe
a person as eccentric, crazy, or just unreliable. A system
that is flaky is working, sort of - enough that you are
tempted to try to use it - but fails frequently enough that
the odds in favour of finishing what you start are low.
Commonwealth hackish prefers dodgy.
[Jargon File]
(1996-01-05)
From Jargon File (4.4.4, 14 Aug 2003) [jargon]:
flaky
adj.
(var sp. flakey) Subject to frequent lossage. This use is of course
related to the common slang use of the word to describe a person as
eccentric, crazy, or just unreliable. A system that is flaky is
working, sort of -- enough that you are tempted to try to use it --
but fails frequently enough that the odds in favor of finishing what
you start are low. Commonwealth hackish prefers dodgy or wonky.