means A single ice crystal that forms in clouds, usually with six sides — and, in modern slang, a dismissive term for someone seen as overly sensitive or easily offended.

from A plain compound of 'snow' and 'flake,' both old Germanic words — 'snow' traces back through Old English 'snaw' to a root shared across Indo-European languages (a cousin of Latin 'nix' and Greek 'nipha'), and 'flake' likely relates to Old Norse and the idea of something flat that flakes or peels off. The word for the falling crystal is centuries old; the insulting sense is a recent twist. The popular tale credits the 1996 novel and film 'Fight Club' with the line about not being a 'special snowflake,' which helped the put-down spread — though the image of a uniquely precious snowflake had floated around well before that.