flint
/flɪnt/
flint noun: 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.
Noun
flint (countable and uncountable, plural flints)
- 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.
- He used flint to make a fire.
- Some of the enormous fragments of chalk which are interstratified with drift have not only layers of undisturbed flints, but also sandpipes in the middle of them, or cylindrical cavities filled with sand and gravel […]1840, Philosophical Magazine, page 365
- A piece of flint, such as a gunflint, used to produce a spark by striking it with a firestriker.
- He used a flint to make a fire.
- A small cylinder of some other material of the same function in a cigarette lighter, etc.
- A variety of maize/corn with a hard outer hull.
- Anything figuratively hard.
- A tailor's employee who is paid by the day.
Verb
flint (third-person singular simple present flints, present participle flinting, simple past and past participle flinted)
- To furnish or decorate an object with flint.
- No schoolboys lingered round Bob Robertson's (yclept Roberson's) blacksmith's shop, for this sleepy day no lusty throat bellowed attention to the flaming tongues fanned from its bloodily blazing teeth; no luminous stars flinted from the clanking anvil.1907, Barbara Baynton, “Human Toll”, in Sally Krimmer, Alan Lawson, editors, Barbara Baynton: Bush Studies, Other Stories, Human Toll, Verse, Essays and Letters (Portable Australian Authors; UQP...
- No change from the primordial doth appear, / Within the earth’s rotation of the year, / Nor are ye heirless of her sane decree, / The problem is potentiality / Of Spring and Autumn, burdenful with Fate, / Upon the seeds of labour ye must wait, / Sowing the Consequence by which ye came, / Flinting...1908, Gerda Dalliba, “[An Earth Poem] Children of Sod (Morning)”, in An Earth Poem and Other Poems, New York, N.Y.; London: G. P. Putnam’s Sons, The Knickerbocker Press, page 33
Proper noun capitalized: Flint
Flint (countable and uncountable, plural Flints)
- An unincorporated community in Mitchell County, Georgia, named after the Flint River.
- A township in Pike County, Illinois.
- An unincorporated community in Jackson Township, Steuben County, Indiana.
- A former unincorporated community in Calloway County, Kentucky.
- A city, the county seat of Genesee County, Michigan.
- Each one claimed they were unjustly criticized, while claiming to have had Flint residents in mind.2016 March 15, Sara Ganim, “Congressman: ‘Sickening’ testimony in Flint hearing”, in CNN
- Remember that so many of us click on links to CashApps, Venmos, PayPals, etc. to donate to bail funds, Flint Water reliefs, the next Ferguson, and the like without any thought of integrating ourselves into collective action?2024, Too Black, Rasul A. Mowatt, “Conclusion”, in Laundering Black Rage: The Washing of Black Death, People, Property, and Profits, New York, N.Y.; Abingdon, Oxfordshire: Routledge, →DOI, →ISBN
- A township in Genesee County, Michigan, adjacent to the city.
- An unincorporated community in Sharon Township, Franklin County, Ohio.
- An unincorporated community in Smith County, Texas.
- An unincorporated community in Randolph County, West Virginia.
- A town and community with a town council in Flintshire, Wales, United Kingdom, by the estuary of the River Dee (OS grid ref SJ2472).
- A surname.
- A male given name
flint meaning in Hindi, Tamil, Marathi and Urdu
flint in Hindi
- hard fine-grained quartz which generates sparks when struck
- चक़मक़ caqmaq, चकमक cakmak
flint in Tamil
- சிக்கிமுக்கி கல், தீக்கல், நெகிழாத, கடினப்பொருள்
flint in Marathi
- flint
- गार gār
flint in Urdu
- flint
- چقماق caqmāq
More languagesFewer languages
- flint in Bengali
- ফ্লিন্ট
- flint in Telugu
- కిమిడి kimiḍi
- flint in Malayalam
- കട്ടിയുള്ള അഭ്രശില, തീക്കല്ല്, അഗ്നിസ്രാവം, ഏറ്റവും ഉറപ്പേറിയ ഏതെങ്കിലും വസ്തു
- flint in Kannada
- ಚಕಮಕಿ ಕಲ್ಲು, ಕಿಡಿಗಲ್ಲು, ಗಡಸು ಕಲ್ಲು
- flint in Punjabi
- ਫਲਿੰਟ, ਫ਼ਲਿੰਟ
- flint in Gujarati
- ચકમક cakmak
- flint in Odia
- ଫ୍ଲିଣ୍ଟ
- flint in Nepali
- चकमक cakamak
- flint in Pashto
- چقمک
- flint in Tagalog
- panting
- flint in Arabic
- صَوَّان ṣawwān, ظُرَر ẓurar, قَدَّاح qaddāḥ, صَوَّانَة ṣawwāna
- flint in Persian
- چخماق čaxmâq, آتشزنه ātašzane
- flint in Thai
- หินเหล็กไฟ hǐn-lèk-fai, หินไฟ hǐn-fai, ฟลินต์
- flint in Vietnamese
- đá lửa
Examples of flint in a sentence
- In a cornfield on one side flakings of flint are numerous.1916, Allen Jesse Reynolds, Wilson Straley, The Archaeological Bulletin, volumes 7-9, page 3:
- The sun had warmed the air to a balmy 45 degrees and sent sparks flinting off the bleachy white snow.2005 January 14, Anne Goodwin Sides, “Rocky Mountain High Life”, in The New York Times:
Forms of flint
| Noun | |
|---|---|
| plural | flints |
| Verb | |
| third-person singular present | flints |
| present participle | flinting |
| past participle | flinted |
| past | flinted |
| Proper noun | |
| plural | Flints |
Origin of flint
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.
Words formed from flint
- Flint Coney
- Flintshire
- eccentric flint
- fix someone's 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
Phrases with flint
Words that rhyme with flint
Questions about flint
- What does flint mean?
- Flint means 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.
- What is flint in Hindi?
- Flint in Hindi is चक़मक़ (caqmaq), चकमक (cakmak). See Flint meaning in Hindi.
- How do you use flint in a sentence?
- In a cornfield on one side flakings of flint are numerous.
- What part of speech is flint?
- Flint can be a noun, a verb or a proper noun.
- How do you pronounce flint?
- Flint is pronounced /flɪnt/.
- What is the plural of flint?
- The plural of flint is flints.
Words near flint in the dictionary
Source and license
Adapted from Wiktionary: flint (page history and authors); Flint (page history and authors); flint (Tamil Wiktionary) (page history and authors); गार (Marathi) (page history and authors); چقماق (Urdu) (page history and authors); flint (Bengali, IndicTrans2 machine translation) (model and license); flint (Malayalam Wiktionary) (page history and authors); flint (Kannada Wiktionary) (page history and authors); flint (Punjabi, IndicTrans2 machine translation) (model and license); flint (Odia, IndicTrans2 machine translation) (model and license). Text available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 license. Word.ws reformatted the entry and added links. Wiktionary data of 2026-09-02.
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Pronunciation audio from Wikimedia Commons, each file under its own free license: en-us-flint.ogg.
Cite this entry: “flint.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/flint. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.