Meaning
Hostile criticism or opposition, as in catching or taking a lot of it after an unpopular decision. Informal. The word began as soldiers' shorthand for anti-aircraft guns and the bursting shells they fired, so the metaphor still carries a sense of being shot at from below. Informal; the criticism sense now far outstrips the military one in everyday use. Regional use: General English, informal (borrowed from German).
Origin
A Second World War-era borrowing of German Flak, itself a contraction of Fliegerabwehrkanone, 'aircraft-defence cannon' (Flieger 'flyer, aircraft' + Abwehr 'defence' + Kanone 'cannon'). The Online Etymology Dictionary dates the English use for anti-aircraft guns to 1938, with the extended sense for anti-aircraft fire itself following by 1940; aircrews' talk of flying through flak then produced the metaphor of catching flak for drawing heavy criticism, which the same source dates to about 1963 in American English. The flak jacket (recorded by 1956) preserves the original military sense, and Merriam-Webster notes the common variant spelling flack alongside both the military and criticism senses.
Research Sources
References used to check this entry’s meaning, history, or documented forms.
Variants
- flack
- FLAK (as an initialism in military contexts)
Usage Examples
- The principal took heavy flak from parents after cutting the music programme.
- Flying at dawn, the bombers ran into intense flak over the estuary.
- She caught a lot of flak for questioning the plan, but the audit proved her right.