flint
Noun · AdjectiveOpen English WordNet
Noun (3)
- a hard kind of stone; a form of silica more opaque than chalcedonyType of silica, silicon oxideKinds gunflint, flintstone, firestone
- a river in western Georgia that flows generally south to join the Chattahoochee River at the Florida border where they form the Apalachicola RiverSynonyms: Flint RiverInstance of riverPart of Georgia, Empire State of the South
- a city in southeast central Michigan near Detroit; automobile manufacturingInstance of city, metropolisPart of Michigan, Wolverine State
Adjective (1)
- showing unfeeling resistance to tender feelings“his flinty gaze”“the child's misery would move even the most obdurate heart”Synonyms: flintygraniticobduratestonyOpposite soft-boiledSimilar hardhearted, heartless
What does it mean? Question 1 of today’s quiz
Webster's Dictionary (1913)
Origin: 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. Mineralogy 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.
2. A piece of flint for striking fire; — formerly much used, esp. in the hammers of gun locks.
3. Anything extremely hard, unimpressible, and unyielding, like flint. “A heart of flint.” Edmund Spenser
Flint age. Geology Same as Stone age, under Stone. — Flint brick, a fire made principially of powdered silex. — Flint glass. See in the Vocabulary. — Flint implements Archæol., 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, Edward Henry — 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. colloquial
Webster’s Revised Unabridged Dictionary (1913), from GCIDE 0.54