flint meaning: definition, etymology and quotations

flint

noun

/flɪnt/

Etymology From Middle English flynt, flint, from Old English flint, from Proto-West Germanic *flint, from Proto-Germanic *flintaz (compare Dutch vlint, flint (“flint, cobblestone”), German Flins, Flint (“flint, pebble”), Danish flint (“flint”)), from Proto-Indo-European *(s)plind- (“to split, cleave”) (compare Irish slinn (“slate, shingle”), Ancient Greek πλίνθος (plínthos)), from *(s)pley- (“to split”). More at split.

A hard, fine-grained quartz that fractures conchoidally and generates sparks when struck against a material such as steel, because tiny chips of the steel are heated to incandescence and burn in air.

He used flint to make a fire.
Some of the enormous fragments of chalk which are interstratified with drift have not only layers of undisturbed flints, but also sandpipes in the middle of them, or cylindrical cavities filled with sand and gravel […]1840, Philosophical Magazine, page 365:

1 more example

In a cornfield on one side flakings of flint are numerous.1916, Allen Jesse Reynolds, Wilson Straley, The Archaeological Bulletin, volumes 7-9, page 3:

A piece of flint, such as a gunflint, used to produce a spark by striking it with a firestriker.

He used a flint to make a fire.

A small cylinder of some other material of the same function in a cigarette lighter, etc.

A variety of maize/corn with a hard outer hull.

Figuratively Anything figuratively hard.

UK, Obsolete, Slang A tailor's employee who is paid by the day.

Derived terms: 29 terms
eccentric flint, fix someone's flint, Flint, flint corn, flint disease, flint-eyed, flinthead, flint-hearted, flintify, flintiness, flintknapper, flintknapping, flintless, flintlike, flintlock, flint mill, flint paper, flintstone, flintware, flintwood, flintwork, flintworker, flinty, gunflint, iron flint, nonflint, semiflint, skin a flint, skinflint
Related terms: chert, ferrocerium

flint

verb

To furnish or decorate an object with flint.

No schoolboys lingered round Bob Robertson's (yclept Roberson's) blacksmith's shop, for this sleepy day no lusty throat bellowed attention to the flaming tongues fanned from its bloodily blazing teeth; no luminous stars flinted from the clanking anvil.1907, Barbara Baynton, “Human Toll”, in Sally Krimmer, Alan Lawson, editors, Barbara Baynton: Bush Studies, Other Stories, Human Toll, Verse, Essays and Letters (Portable Australian Authors; UQP Australian Authors), St. Lucia, Qld.: University of Queensland Press, published 1980, →ISBN, →ISSN, page 147:
No change from the primordial doth appear, / Within the earth’s rotation of the year, / Nor are ye heirless of her sane decree, / The problem is potentiality / Of Spring and Autumn, burdenful with Fate, / Upon the seeds of labour ye must wait, / Sowing the Consequence by which ye came, / Flinting the fire not to fire but flame, / With all the end of Destiny the same!1908, Gerda Dalliba, “[An Earth Poem] Children of Sod (Morning)”, in An Earth Poem and Other Poems, New York, N.Y.; London: G. P. Putnam’s Sons, The Knickerbocker Press, page 33:

1 more example

The sun had warmed the air to a balmy 45 degrees and sent sparks flinting off the bleachy white snow.2005 January 14, Anne Goodwin Sides, “Rocky Mountain High Life”, in The New York Times:

Entry derived from the Wiktionary, under licence CC BY-SA 4.0 — list of authors.