What's the difference between flaky and flay?

Flaky


Definition:

  • (a.) Consisting of flakes or of small, loose masses; lying, or cleaving off, in flakes or layers; flakelike.

Example Sentences:

  • (1) She stayed calm during the upsetting search that led to Cynthia, who turned out to be flaky, chain-smoking and white (played by Brenda Blethyn).
  • (2) Corbyn to complain to MoD about army chief's ‘political interference’ Read more Meanwhile, Jeremy Corbyn’s political mis-steps over the past 10 days have allowed his views to be dismissed as flaky and irresponsible – even where he is right, as in his warnings about kneejerk responses to terrorist attacks and, indeed, in his Armistice Day strictures about the requirement for the top brass to stay out of politics .
  • (3) Patients with acute or chronic liver disease often suffer from dry, itchy and flaky skin.
  • (4) It's paid for on a wing and a prayer ... George Osborne's savings are so flaky, he's admitted he doesn't even know which department is going to pay what."
  • (5) We observed the labelling of 4-8 nm wide amyloid fibrils in the plaque cores and of extracellular electrondense, flaky and irregularly distributed material in the preamyloid deposits.
  • (6) Labour MPs tell me that the position of their traditional supporters is “flaky”.
  • (7) They are firmer and less flaky than Cornish pasties and don't break, making them the perfect picnic food.
  • (8) The business plan of the bridge promoters is a bit flaky, I think, based on assumptions, and the public purse may have to underwrite other costs we don’t know about yet.
  • (9) For the dressing 1 tbsp cider or white-wine vinegar 3 tbsp olive oil Flaky sea salt and freshly ground black pepper For the salad A couple of handfuls rocket leaves 80g semi-soft blue cheese 6 dates, pitted and sliced 50g hazelnuts, toasted and roughly chopped Whisk together the vinegar and oil until you have a creamy emulsion, then pour a tablespoon into the bottom of a bowl.
  • (10) And while DeMerit has probably chosen the right time to call it a day, Carl Robinson would have loved at least another year of peak production from his captains as he tries to build some solidity into a talented but sometimes flaky Vancouver team.
  • (11) After a promising start it appears this press conference has degenerated into its usual cocoon of flaky stuff.
  • (12) Private landlords stop renting to “flaky” benefit recipients, social landlords’ rental income dries up and (because they are forced to renege on their own borrowing commitments) stop building new affordable housing.
  • (13) The electron micrographic scanning of specimens of calculi revealed the following matrix morphologies: (i) flaky, (ii) serrated, (iii) perforated (globular), (iv) hollow tubular, (v) fibrillar, (vi) cylindrical, and (vii) pear-drop shaped.
  • (14) As a revertant of this character, a flaky mutant was isolated, showing a heavy flocculation during growth on liquid medium and resistance to catabolite repression for maltase, alpha-methyl-glucosidase, invertase, and succinate dehydrogenase.
  • (15) She also failed to write her title correctly on a whiteboard, was filmed painting her "flaky" nails and compared the force to a tin of paint that she wanted to "prise" open.
  • (16) He is regularly described as "brilliant", "sophisticated", "not flaky", "operationally effective".
  • (17) Before that people thought it was just flaky, feelgood stuff," says Richard Jolly, who worked for the United Nations Children's Fund and is writing a history of the UN.
  • (18) They produce a dirty white almost flaky odoriferous substance which clings to the hairs of the area and is easily rubbed off for marking territorial areas as well as for marking females during mating.
  • (19) "I am absolutely not prepared to do that if other people take a flaky pick and choose approach to what we agreed," Clegg says when asked whether he would support the reforms when Cameron presses ahead with a vote in the Commons.
  • (20) The wage penalty arising from flaky sub-degree-level qualifications – a longstanding weakness – would rise, as would the premium for those who can combine rigorous analytical thinking with creativity.

Flay


Definition:

  • (v. t.) To skin; to strip off the skin or surface of; as, to flay an ox; to flay the green earth.

Example Sentences:

  • (1) The former foreign secretary, William Hague, warned earlier this month that central bankers could lose their independence if they ignored public anger over low interest rates, while Michael Gove, the leading pro-leave campaigner and former cabinet minister, compared Carney to the Chinese emperor Ming , whose “person was held to be inviolable and without imperfections” and whose critics were flayed alive.
  • (2) It was like a triple-bill version of those events that became such a feature of the 2005 campaign, when Tony Blair insisted on following what he called a “masochism strategy.” The leaders of the three main parties had to play the submissive, smiling politely as the flesh was flayed off them.
  • (3) Federer flays a backhand into the corner but Murray reads it and eventually he's able to send an easy backhand past Federer.
  • (4) Blair’s decisions will be exhumed, his reputation may well be flayed once more.
  • (5) Nuclease S1 analysis also revealed a protected fragment whose size was consistent with a transcript initiating in vivo at a consensus "nif" promoter sequence in front of the flaY gene.
  • (6) And Olivia Lee – who has the presenting style of a bossy girlfriend you'd flay a bag of kittens to be rid of – is not the woman to rebuild them.
  • (7) He has another flay at goal after gliding in from the right.
  • (8) We demonstrate here that two flagellar genes, flaE and flaY, whose products function in trans to modulate the level of transcription of other flagellar genes, are themselves temporally controlled.
  • (9) His skin was flayed by metal-hooked whips and a crown woven with thorns sunk into his scalp.
  • (10) (ii) hag gene expression was positively regulated by flaA, FLAB, flaC, flaD, flaE, flaG, flaH, flaI, flaK, flaL, flaM, flaN, flaO, flaP, flaQ, flaR, flaV, flaW, flaX, flaY, flaZ, flbA, and flbB genes.hag-lac expression was not observed in strains with these fla mutations.
  • (11) The land is low-lying, dwarfed by loch and sea, and flayed by wind.
  • (12) Incredibly, he was honoured by an international press that is now flaying him.
  • (13) This conclusion is based on two observations: the low level of synthesis of flagellins and chemotaxis proteins in flaY and flaE mutant strains occurred at the correct time in the cell cycle, and complementation with plasmids containing intact flaY and flaE genes resulted in the synthesis of normal levels of flagellins and chemotaxis gene products with the maintenance of temporal cell cycle control.
  • (14) In the old days, he would have flayed any minister daring to call for Bennite state investment to halt the sorry neglect of manufacturing.
  • (15) Clinton flayed Trump on his refusal to release his tax returns, on his “long record” of “racist behavior”, on his lack of knowledge about the deal to withdraw US troops from Iraq, on climate change being a Chinese “hoax”, and on and on.
  • (16) Its coarse, flayed bark made crisp curls and revealed holes and channels deep inside.
  • (17) He hits a high flay to right that looks like the crowd blows back into play.
  • (18) Using plasmid complementation, we have mapped the extent of the flaY and flaE genes.
  • (19) But he also feels a kinship with the tragic Fitzgerald, who set out to write a beautiful, groundbreaking, modernist book and found himself flayed by the critics and hung out to dry.
  • (20) "He has also compared one of Boris Johnson's staff to a war criminal, called for bankers to be hung, said those who don't vote for him will be 'flayed for all eternity' and likened the mayoral campaign to the second world war, referring to Boris as Hitler," the campaign said.