- flack
- flack (n.) "publicity or press agent," 1945, also as a verb by that year, said to have been coined in show biz magazine "Variety" (but this is not the first attested use), supposedly from name of Gene Flack, a movie agent, but influenced by FLAK (Cf. flak). There was a Gene Flack who was an advertising executive in the U.S. during the 1940s, but he seems to have sold principally biscuits, not movies.
Etymology dictionary. 2014.