flake n. a (packed, firm, or cohesive) portion of animal fodder such as hay or straw, smaller than a bale and larger than a handful. Editorial Note: The size of a flake is not fixed, as you can see in the citations where it is variously explained as weighing 20 pounds, equaling one-twentieth of a bale, measuring two to three inches wide, or approximating the width of an encyclopedia. (source: Double-Tongued Dictionary)
Further reading
Names don’t always mean what you think they mean. Main Street in San Francisco is named after businessman Charles Main, and Snowflake, Arizona, honors two guys named Snow and Flake. Plus, big words for small people: A colorful new book...
Names don’t always mean what you think they mean. Main Street in San Francisco is named for businessman Charles Main. Snowflake, Arizona, is named for Erastus Snow and William Jordan Flake. This is part of a complete episode.
Related
The word is actually “fleak”. People have misused the word flake so much it has become the flavor of the day, as it were. It is from Old English, or very early American English i think. I googled it and found the term used properly in a few cited articles way down the hit list.
“Fleak” is an alternate spelling (I’ll add a citation or two for it shortly) but “flake” is still far and away the most common spelling now and historically.