Flint

• POS: Noun, Verb (transitive)

CIDE DICTIONARY

Flint, n. [AS. flint, akin to Sw. flinta, Dan. flint; cf. OHG. flins flint, G. flinte gun (cf. E. flintlock), perh. akin to Gr. brick. Cf. Plinth.].

•  A massive, somewhat impure variety of quartz, in color usually of a gray to brown or nearly black, breaking with a conchoidal fracture and sharp edge. It is very hard, and strikes fire with steel.  [1913 Webster]
•  A piece of flint for striking fire; -- formerly much used, esp. in the hammers of gun locks.  [1913 Webster]
•  Anything extremely hard, unimpressible, and unyielding, like flint.  Spenser.  [1913 Webster]

Flint age. (Geol.) Same as Stone age, under Stone. -- Flint brick, a fire made principially of powdered silex. -- Flint glass. See in the Vocabulary. -- Flint implements (Archæol.), tools, etc., employed by men before the use of metals, such as axes, arrows, spears, knives, wedges, etc., which were commonly made of flint, but also of granite, jade, jasper, and other hard stones. -- Flint mill. (a) (Pottery) A mill in which flints are ground. (b) (Mining) An obsolete appliance for lighting the miner at his work, in which flints on a revolving wheel were made to produce a shower of sparks, which gave light, but did not inflame the fire damp. Knight. -- Flint stone, a hard, siliceous stone; a flint. -- Flint wall, a kind of wall, common in England, on the face of which are exposed the black surfaces of broken flints set in the mortar, with quions of masonry. -- Liquor of flints, a solution of silica, or flints, in potash. -- To skin a flint, to be capable of, or guilty of, any expedient or any meanness for making money. [Colloq.]

OXFORD DICTIONARY

Flint, n.
1 a a hard grey stone of nearly pure silica occurring naturally as nodules or bands in chalk. b a piece of this esp. as flaked or ground to form a primitive tool or weapon.
2 a piece of hard alloy of rare-earth metals used to give an igniting spark in a cigarette-lighter etc.
3 a piece of flint used with steel to produce fire, esp. in a flintlock gun.
4 anything hard and unyielding.

Idiom

flint corn a variety of maize having hard translucent grains. flint glass a pure lustrous kind of glass orig. made with flint.

Derivative

flinty adj. (flintier, flintiest). flintily adv. flintiness n.

Etymology

OE

THESAURUS

Flint

adamant, bone, brand, brick, butane lighter, cement, cigarette lighter, concrete, diamond, firebrand, flambeau, flint and steel, granite, heart of oak, igniter, iron, light, lighter, marble, nails, oak, portfire, rock, sparker, spill, steel, stone, taper, torch

ROGET THESAURUS

Flint

Hardness

N hardness, rigidity, renitence, renitency, inflexibility, temper, callosity, durity, induration, petrifaction, lapidification, lapidescence, vitrification, ossification, crystallization, stone, pebble, flint, marble, rock, fossil, crag, crystal, quartz, granite, adamant, bone, cartilage, hardware, heart of oak, block, board, deal board, iron, steel, cast iron, decarbonized iron, wrought iron, nail, brick, concrete, cement, hard, rigid, stubborn, stiff, firm, starch, starched, stark, unbending, unlimber, unyielding, inflexible, tense, indurate, indurated, gritty, proof, adamant, adamantine, adamantean, concrete, stony, granitic, calculous, lithic, vitreous, horny, corneous, bony, osseous, ossific, cartilaginous, hard as a rock, stiff as buckram, stiff as a poker, stiff as starch, stiff as as board.