flint

Noun

1. (countable, uncountable) 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. (countable, uncountable) A piece of flint, such as a gunflint, used to produce a spark by striking it with a firestriker.
3. (countable, uncountable) A small cylinder of some other material of the same function in a cigarette lighter, etc.
4. (countable, uncountable) A type of maize/corn with a hard outer hull.
5. (countable, figuratively, uncountable) Anything figuratively hard.

Verb

To furnish or decorate an object with flint.

Pronounced as (IPA)

/flɪnt/

Etymology

Inherited from Middle English: flynt

Inherited from Old English: flint

Cognate with Dutch: vlint

Cognate with German: Flins

Cognate with Danish: flint

Cognate with Irish: slinn

Cognate with Ancient Greek: πλίνθος

In summary

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.

Synonyms

obsidian

flint stone

firestone

stone

🪨

arrowhead

flintstone

obdurate

flinty

pyrites

stony

granitic

silex

silica

flint for lighter

gunflint

hard

hardcore

hard-core

harsh

heavy

inexorable

intense

iron

keen

loud

opal

pebble

rough

ruffianly

severe

sharp

steely

stern

stiff

strict

tall

tough

unforgiving

unrelenting

stone knife

unmalleable

ball-breaker

ball-buster

spark producer

lighter flint

flintrock

austere

bad

👎

big

bitter

Translations

silex

pedernal

Feuerstein

vuursteen

selce

krzemień

kiezelsteen

sílex

Flint

sílex

çakmaktaşı

keisteen

silex

kiezel

Silex