# flint
## English
### Etymology

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.

### Pronunciation

* IPA: /flɪnt/
* Audio (US):(file)
* Rhymes: -ɪnt
* Homophones: Flint, Flynt

### 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.
** 1840, Philosophical Magazine, page 365: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 […]
** 1916, Allen Jesse Reynolds, Wilson Straley, The Archaeological Bulletin, volumes 7-9, page 3:In a cornfield on one side flakings of flint are numerous.
* A piece of flint, such as a gunflint, used to produce a spark by striking it with a firestriker.
* A small cylinder of some other material of the same function in a cigarette lighter, etc.
* A type of maize/corn with a hard outer hull.
* (figurative) Anything figuratively hard.

#### Derived terms

* eccentric flint
* fix someone's flint
* 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

#### Translations

    The translations below need to be checked and inserted above into the appropriate translation tables. See instructions at Wiktionary:Entry layout § Translations.

#### See also

* chert
* ferrocerium

### Verb

flint (third-person singular simple present flints, present participle flinting, simple past and past participle flinted)
* (transitive) To furnish or decorate an object with flint.
** 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 Australian Authors), St. Lucia, Qld.: University of Queensland Press, published 1980, →ISBN, →ISSN, page 147: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.
** 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: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 the fire not to fire but flame, / With all the end of Destiny the same!
** 2005 January 14, Anne Goodwin Sides, “Rocky Mountain High Life”, in The New York Times‎:The sun had warmed the air to a balmy 45 degrees and sent sparks flinting off the bleachy white snow.

### Further reading

* David Barthelmy (1997–2025) “Flint”, in Webmineral Mineralogy Database.
* “flint”, in Mindat.org‎, Hudson Institute of Mineralogy, 2000–2025.

## French
### Noun

flint m (plural flints)
* flint glass

## Middle English
### Noun

flint
* Alternative form of flynt

## Old English
### Etymology

From Proto-West Germanic *flint, from Proto-Germanic *flintaz

### Pronunciation

* IPA: /flint/

### Noun

flint m
* (stone) flint
** c. 995, Ælfric, Excerptiones de Arte Grammatica Anglice
    hic silex þēs flinthic silex this flint

## Polish
### Pronunciation

* IPA: /ˈflint/
* Rhymes: -int
* Syllabification: flint

### Noun

flint f
* genitive plural of flinta

## Swedish
### Etymology 1

Clipping of flintskalle.

#### Noun

flint c
* a bald head (or bald portion of the head)
    Vilken flint han har fått!My God, he has balded!

##### Declension
### Etymology 2

Clipping of flintskallig.

#### Adjective

flint (comparative mer flint, superlative mest flint)
* (colloquial) bald (having a bald head)
    Synonyms: (colloquial) flintis, flintskallig

##### Declension

$^1$ The indefinite superlative forms are only used in the predicative. $^2$ Dated or archaic. $^3$ Only used, optionally, to refer to things whose natural gender is masculine.

### References

* flint in Svensk ordbok (SO)
* flint in Svenska Akademiens ordlista (SAOL)