dictionary definitions for "flint"


From The Collaborative International Dictionary of English v.0.48 [gcide]:

  Flint \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.]
     1. (Min.) 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]
  
     2. A piece of flint for striking fire; -- formerly much used,
        esp. in the hammers of gun locks.
        [1913 Webster]
  
     3. Anything extremely hard, unimpressible, and unyielding,
        like flint. "A heart of 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 (Arch[ae]ol.), 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.]
        [1913 Webster]

From WordNet (r) 3.0 (2006) [wn]:

  flint
      adj 1: showing unfeeling resistance to tender feelings; "his
             flinty gaze"; "the child's misery would move even the
             most obdurate heart" [syn: flinty, flint, granitic,
             obdurate, stony]
      n 1: a hard kind of stone; a form of silica more opaque than
           chalcedony
      2: a river in western Georgia that flows generally south to join
         the Chattahoochee River at the Florida border where they form
         the Apalachicola River [syn: Flint, Flint River]
      3: a city in southeast central Michigan near Detroit; automobile
         manufacturing


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