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.
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3. Anything extremely hard, unimpressible, and unyielding,
like flint. "A heart of flint." --Spenser.
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{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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