noun
- a hard stone, a form of silica resembling chalcedony but more opaque, less pure, and less lustrous.
- a piece of this, especially as used for striking fire.
- a chunk of this used as a primitive tool or as the core from which such a tool was struck.
- something very hard or unyielding.
- a small piece of metal, usually an iron alloy, used to produce a spark to ignite the fuel in a cigarette lighter.
verb (used with object)
- to furnish with flint.
noun
- Austin,1812–86, U.S. physician: founder of Bellevue and Buffalo medical colleges.
- his sonAustin,1836–1915, U.S. physiologist and physician.
- a city in SE Michigan.
- Flintshire.
noun
- an impure opaque microcrystalline greyish-black form of quartz that occurs in chalk. It produces sparks when struck with steel and is used in the manufacture of pottery, flint glass, and road-construction materials. Formula: SiO 2
- any piece of flint, esp one used as a primitive tool or for striking fire
- a small cylindrical piece of an iron alloy, used in cigarette lighters
- Also called: flint glass, white flint colourless glass other than plate glass
- See optical flint
verb
- (tr) to fit or provide with a flint
noun
- a town in NE Wales, in Flintshire, on the Dee estuary. Pop: 11 936 (2001)
- a city in SE Michigan: closure of the car production plants led to a high level of unemployment. Pop: 120 292 (2003 est)
Old English flint “flint, rock,” common Germanic (cf. Middle Dutch vlint, Old High German flins, Danish flint), from PIE *splind- “to split, cleave,” from root *(s)plei- “to splice, split” (cf. Greek plinthos “brick, tile,” Old Irish slind “brick”). Transferred senses were in Old English.
- A very hard, gray to black variety of chalcedony that makes sparks when it is struck with steel. It breaks with a conchoidal fracture.
- The dark gray to black variety of chert.