FLINTS
Noun
flints
plural of flint
Verb
flints
Third-person singular simple present indicative form of flint
Source: Wiktionary
FLINT
Flint, n. Etym: [AS. flint, akin to Sw. flinta, Dan. flint; cf. OHG.
flins flint, G. flinte gun (cf. E. flintlock), perh. akin to Gr.
Plinth.]
1. (Min.)
Definition: 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." Spenser. 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 (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.
– 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.]
Source: Webster’s Unabridged Dictionary 1913 Edition