flake: [14] Flake appears to go back to a prehistoric Germanic source which denoted the splitting of rocks into strata. This was *flak-, a variant of which produced English flaw [14] (which originally meant ‘flake’), the second syllable of whitlow [14] (which probably means etymologically ‘white fissure’), floe [19], and probably flag ‘stone slab’. => flag, flaw, floe, whitlow[flake etymology, flake origin, 英语词源]