flake
n.a small, thin piece of something that has broken off a larger surface. You often see these when paint or skin peels away.
n.a small, thin, flattened piece or layer of a substance, typically one that has peeled or broken away from a larger mass.
“The old paint fell off the wall in a large flake.”
“After spending all day at the beach without sunscreen, he noticed a small flake of skin peeling from his shoulder.”
“The restorer carefully removed each loose flake of pigment from the canvas before applying a fresh layer of protective varnish to the centuries-old portrait.”
Often used with 'of' to specify the material, such as 'a flake of snow' or 'flakes of rust'.
From Middle English flake (“a flake of snow”), from Old English flacca and/or Old Norse flak (“loose or torn piece”) (compare Old Norse flakna (“to flake or chip”)), from Proto-Germanic flaką (“something flat”), from Proto-Indo-European pleh₂- (“flat, broad, plain”). Cognate with Norwegian flak (“slice, sliver”, literally “piece torn off”), Swedish flak (“a thin slice”), Danish flage (“flake”), German Flocke (“flake”), Dutch vlak (“smooth surface, plain”) and vlok (“flake”), as well as with Latin plaga (“flat surface, district, region”) and Welsh llech (“slate, tablet”). Doublet of plage.
A name given to dogfish to improve its marketability as a food, perhaps from etymology 1.
Compare Icelandic flaki, Icelandic fleki, Danish flage, Dutch vlaak.
Etymology adapted from Wiktionary, available under CC BY-SA 4.0.