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



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Word of the Day

24 December 2024

INTUITIVELY

(adverb) in an intuitive manner; “inventors seem to have chosen intuitively a combination of explosive and aggressive sounds as warning signals to be used on automobiles”


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Coffee Trivia

According to Guinness World Records, the largest iced coffee is 14,228.1 liters and was created by Caffé Bene (South Korea), in Yangju, South Korea, on 17 July 2014. They poured iced black Americano on the giant cup that measured 3.3 meters tall and 2.62 meters wide.

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