flint

flint

See also: 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 *splind- (“to split, cleave”) (compare Irish slinn (“slate, shingle”), Ancient Greek πλίνθος (plínthos)), from *(s)plei- (“to split”). More at split.

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): /flɪnt/

• Audio (US)

  (file)

• Rhymes: -ɪnt
• Homophones: Flint, Flynt

Noun

flint (countable and uncountable, plural flints)

1. 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.

2. A piece of flint, such as a gunflint, used to produce a spark by striking it with a firestriker.
3. A small cylinder of some other material of the same function in a cigarette lighter, etc.
4. A type of maize/corn with a hard outer hull.
5. (figurative) Anything figuratively hard.

Derived terms

• eccentric flint
• fix someone's flint
• Flint
• flint corn
• flint disease
• flint-hearted
• flintiness
• flint mill
• flint paper
• flintstone
• flintwork
• flinty
• gunflint
• iron flint
• semiflint
• skin a flint

 

Translations

hard fine-grained quartz which generates sparks when struck

Arabic: صَوَّان‎ m (ṣawwān), ظُرَر‎ m (ẓurar), قَدَّاح‎ m (qaddāḥ) Armenian: կայծքար (hy) (kayckʿar) Bashkir: саҡматаш (saqmataş) Basque: sukarri Belarusian: крэ́мень m (krémjenʹ) Bulgarian: кре́мък (bg) m (krémǎk) Catalan: sílex (ca) Chinese: Mandarin: 燧石 (zh) (suìshí) Czech: pazourek (cs) m Danish: ildsten, flint (da) c Dutch: vuursteen (nl) n, keisteen (nl) m Esperanto: siliko (eo), fajroŝtono Faroese: tinna f Finnish: piikivi (fi) French: silex (fr) m Galician: sílex m Georgian: კაჟი (ḳaži) German: (normal) Feuerstein (de) m; (dated, regional) Flintstein (de) m, Flint (de) m; (scientific, unusual) Silex m Greek: Cappadocian: κασκάρα (kaskára) Gujarati: ચકમક (cakmak) Hindi: चक़मक़ m or f (caqmaq), चकमक (hi) m (cakmak) Hungarian: kovakő (hu) Icelandic: tinna f Italian: selce (it) Japanese: 燧石 (ja) (ひうちいし, hiuchiishi, すいせき, suiseki) Kazakh: шақпақ (şaqpaq) Korean: 플린트 (peullinteu), 수석(燧石) (ko) (suseok) Kurdish: Central Kurdish: بەردەستێ‎ (berdestê), کوچکاوْر‎ (kuçkawir) Northern Kurdish: berheste (ku) Latgalian: kroms Latin: silex (la) Latvian: krams Lithuanian: titnagas Macedonian: кремен m (kremen), белутрак m (belutrak) Maori: paea Maranao: batolakit Nahuatl: tecpatl (nah) Navajo: béésh Nepali: चकमक (ne) (cakamak) Newar: च्वल्वहं (cwalwahaṃ) Norman: pièrre à feu f Norwegian: flint Occitan: pèira de fòc f, silèx (oc) m, pèira frejal f, pèira selze f Old Church Slavonic: Cyrillic: кремꙑ m (kremy) Old English: flint m Old Norse: tinna f Oneida: kanhya̲’ Ossetian: ӕхсон (æxson) Pashto: چقمک‎ Persian: خارا‎ (fa) (xârâ) Plautdietsch: Fiasteen m Polish: krzemień (pl) m, krzemyk m Portuguese: sílex (pt) Romanian: silex (ro), cremene (ro) n Russian: креме́нь (ru) m (kreménʹ) Saanich: qentoles Serbo-Croatian: Cyrillic: кре̏ме̄н m Latin: krȅmēn (sh) m Slovak: silicit, rohovec, pazúrik (sk), flint, buližník Slovene: kremen (sl) Sorbian: Lower Sorbian: kśemjeń m Upper Sorbian: křemjeń m Spanish: pedernal (es) m, sílex Swedish: flinta (sv) Tagalog: panting Telugu: కిమిడి (kimiḍi) Thai: หินเหล็กไฟ (th) (hǐn-lèk-fai), หินไฟ (hǐn-fai) Turkish: çakmak taşı (tr) Ukrainian: кре́мінь m (kréminʹ) Vietnamese: đá lửa (vi) Volapük: flintoin (vo) Welsh: callestr (cy) m or f, fflint (cy) m or f Yiddish: פֿײַערשטיינ‎ m (fayershteyn), קיזלשטיינ‎ m (kizlshteyn)

piece of flint, such as gunflint used to produce a spark — See also translations at firestriker

Arabic: صَوَّانَة‎ m (ṣawwāna), ظِرّ‎ m (ẓirr), ظُرَرَة‎ f (ẓurara), قَدَّاحَة‎ f (qaddāḥa) Armenian: կայծքար (hy) (kayckʿar) Bashkir: саҡматаш (saqmataş) Catalan: pedrenyal (ca) m, pedrenyera f, pedra foguera f Czech: pazourek (cs) m Danish: flint (da) c Dutch: vuursteen (nl) m Esperanto: fajroŝtono (dated) French: pierre à fusil (fr) f Galician: pederneira f German: Feuerstein (de) m, Zündstein m Macedonian: кремен m (kremen), белутрак m (belutrak) Norman: pièrre à feu f Polish: krzesiwo (pl) n Portuguese: pederneira (pt) f Russian: огни́во (ru) n (ognívo) Spanish: pedernal (es) m Ukrainian: креса́ло n (kresálo), огни́во (uk) n (ohnývo) (old) Volapük: (gun) flintoin güna

small cylinder

Bulgarian: камъче n (kamǎče) Danish: flint (da) c Finnish: kivi (fi) French: pierre à briquet (fr) f Spanish: pedernal (es) m, piedra (es) f

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

Translations to be checked

Italian: (please verify) selce (it) Korean: (please verify) 부싯돌 (ko) (busitdol)

See also

• chert
• ferrocerium

Verb

flint (third-person singular simple present flints, present participle flinting, simple past and past participle flinted)

1. (transitive) To furnish or decorate an object with flint.

Further reading

• David Barthelmy (1997–2023), “Flint”, in Webmineral Mineralogy Database.
• “flint”, in Mindat.org‎, Hudson Institute of Mineralogy, 2000–2023.

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French

Noun

flint m (plural flints)

1. flint glass

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Middle English

Noun

flint

1. Alternative form of flynt

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Polish

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): /flint/
• Rhymes: -int
• Syllabification: flint

Noun

flint f

1. genitive plural of flinta

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Swedish

Etymology 1

Clipping of flintskalle.

Noun

flint c

1. a bald head

   Vilken flint han har fått!

   My God, he has balded!

Declension

Declension of flint
	Singular		Plural
	Indefinite	Definite	Indefinite	Definite
Nominative	flint	flinten	flintar	flintarna
Genitive	flints	flintens	flintars	flintarnas

Etymology 2

Clipping of flintskallig.

Adjective

flint (comparative mer flint, superlative mest flint)

1. (colloquial) bald

   Synonyms: (colloquial) flintis, flintskallig

Declension

Inflection of flint
Indefinite	Positive	Comparative	Superlative2
Common singular	flint	mer flint	mest flint
Neuter singular	flint	mer flint	mest flint
Plural	flinta	mer flinta	mest flinta
Masculine plural3	flinte	mer flinta	mest flinta
Definite	Positive	Comparative	Superlative
Masculine singular1	flinte	mer flinte	mest flinte
All	flinta	mer flinta	mest flinta
1) Only used, optionally, to refer to things whose natural gender is masculine. 2) The indefinite superlative forms are only used in the predicative. 3) Dated or archaic