Other forms: snowflakes
A snowflake is a single falling ice crystal, each with a unique six-armed shape. Catch a snowflake, snowflakes falling, no two snowflakes alike.
The six arms come from the way water molecules bond, and the shape records the temperature and humidity the crystal fell through — which is why the arms match each other and no two flakes match. As an insult, snowflake means easily offended.
1nounsnowflakeA single falling ice crystal.
“The children ran outside and tried to catch snowflakes on their tongues.”
snowflake is an ice crystal.
Snow plus flake. Flake comes from an Old Norse root meaning something flat or peeled off.
From snow + flake. Compare stq Sneeflokke (“snowflake”), Dutch sneeuwvlok, lb Schnéiflack, German Schneeflocke.
Etymology from Wiktionary, CC BY-SA