flake
n.— «One of the shrewd ways in which the boys made concealment was by lifting a flake of hay from the stack and making a hole beneath it. Upon letting the flake of weather-beaten thatch fall back into place, all signs of the nest disappeared.» —by Hamlin Garland Boy Life on the Prairie (New York) , 1899. (source: Double-Tongued Dictionary)
Further reading
After our conversation about the expression dingle day, a term used by workers at a research station in Antarctica to denote bright, sunny weather, a listener offers a possible explanation for this term. It may derive from the idea of the skies...
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...