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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.

  1. derived from *(s)plind-✻ — “to split, cleave”
  2. inherited from *flintaz✻
  3. inherited from *flint✻
  4. inherited from flint
  5. inherited from flynt

Definitions

  1. A hard, fine-grained quartz that fractures conchoidally and generates sparks when struck…

    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 […]
    • In a cornfield on one side flakings of flint are numerous.

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

    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.

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

  4. ›+ 6 more definitions

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

    2. Anything figuratively hard.

    3. A tailor's employee who is paid by the day.

    4. To furnish or decorate an object with flint.

      • The sun had warmed the air to a balmy 45 degrees and sent sparks flinting off the bleachy white snow.

    5. A placename

      A placename:

    6. A surname.

The neighborhood

Derived

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

Vish — recursive loop

No curated loop yet for flint. Loops are being traced one word at a time while the ingestion pipeline matures.

sense glosses and etymology drawn from English Wiktionary · source · CC-BY-SA