English Explanatory Dictionary

flint

English dictionary entry

Meanings

noun
  1. 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.
  2. A piece of flint, such as a gunflint, used to produce a spark by striking it with a firestriker.
  3. A small cylinder of some other material of the same function in a cigarette lighter, etc.
  4. A variety of maize/corn with a hard outer hull.
  5. Anything figuratively hard.
  6. A tailor's employee who is paid by the day.
verb
  1. To furnish or decorate an object with flint.
name
  1. A placename:
  2. A number of places in the United States:
  3. An unincorporated community in Mitchell County, Georgia, named after the Flint River.
  4. A township in Pike County, Illinois.
  5. An unincorporated community in Jackson Township, Steuben County, Indiana.
  6. A former unincorporated community in Calloway County, Kentucky.
  7. A city, the county seat of Genesee County, Michigan.
  8. A township in Genesee County, Michigan, adjacent to the city.
  9. An unincorporated community in Sharon Township, Franklin County, Ohio.
  10. An unincorporated community in Smith County, Texas.
  11. An unincorporated community in Randolph County, West Virginia.
  12. A town and community with a town council in Flintshire, Wales, by the estuary of the River Dee (OS grid ref SJ2472).

Pronunciation

/flɪnt/ en-us-flint.ogg

Word forms

flint flints flinting flinted

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.

Related words

chert ferrocerium

Derived words

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 Flintshire
This entry uses open data from Wiktionary (CC BY-SA/GFDL). Word forms are used for search and are not indexed as separate pages.
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