Flak

How to spell flak

4 letters · 1 syllable

How to pronounce flak

What does flak mean?

1. nounStrong, hostile criticism or opposition.
2. nounAnti-aircraft fire, or the guns that produce it.

Flak in a sentence

• The manager took a lot of flak for cancelling the bonus scheme.

• The bomber crew flew through heavy flak on the approach to the target.

• She expected some flak from customers after raising the prices.

• The pilot reported bursts of flak exploding around the wings.

Where does flak come from?

Language of origin: Other

This word is one of the rare English words that began life as a foreign military acronym. It comes from the German Fliegerabwehrkanone, literally an 'aircraft defence cannon', which the Germans shortened to Flak in the 1930s. The compound is built from Flieger (aviator or aircraft), Abwehr (defence or warding off), and Kanone (cannon). English borrowed it during the Second World War to mean the bursting anti-aircraft fire that bomber crews flew through, and by the 1960s it had drifted into figurative use for a barrage of hostile criticism. Because the word is an acronym rather than an ordinary borrowing, it keeps its short, blunt spelling with a final k, which is exactly why people wrongly add a c and write 'flack' (a separate word meaning a publicity agent).

How the word is built

• from German Fliegerabwehrkanone, an acronym: Flieger (aviator/aircraft)
• Abwehr (defence)
• Kanone (cannon)