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flint.

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.

5 characters1 syllables approx.English language

Meaning & usage

noun/flɪnt/

  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.

    uncountable
    He used flint to make a fire.

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

    countable · uncountable
    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.

    countable · uncountable

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

    countable · uncountable

  5. Anything figuratively hard.

    countable · figuratively · uncountable

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

    UK · countable · obsolete · slang · uncountable
Where this word comes from

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.

verb/flɪnt/

  1. To furnish or decorate an object with flint.

    transitive
Where this word comes from

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.

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Definitions, grammatical labels, IPA, etymology and examples: Wiktionary contributors, extracted by Kaikki / Wiktextract. Adapted under CC BY-SA 4.0. Selected fields and authored examples are shown; third-party quotations and audio are omitted. See contributor history.

Last enriched 2026-09-10. Definitions are in English. Romanizations are shown when supplied by the source; syllable estimates are omitted for unsupported scripts.