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• flint
  flint

  noun

  a hard stone, a form of silica resembling chalcedony but more opaque, less pure, and less lustrous.
• Flint
  Flint

  noun

  Austin, 1812–86, U.S. physician: founder of Bellevue and Buffalo medical colleges.

flint

¹ American  

[flint] / flɪnt /

noun

• flints
  plural

1. a hard stone, a form of silica resembling chalcedony but more opaque, less pure, and less lustrous.

2. a piece of this, especially as used for striking fire.

3. a chunk of this used as a primitive tool or as the core from which such a tool was struck.

4. something very hard or unyielding.

5. a small piece of metal, usually an iron alloy, used to produce a spark to ignite the fuel in a cigarette lighter.

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verb (used with object)

1. to furnish with flint.

Flint ² American  

[flint] / flɪnt /

noun

1. Austin, 1812–86, U.S. physician: founder of Bellevue and Buffalo medical colleges.

2. his son Austin, 1836–1915, U.S. physiologist and physician.

3. a city in SE Michigan.

4. Flintshire.

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flint ¹ British  

/ flɪnt /

noun

1. an impure opaque microcrystalline greyish-black form of quartz that occurs in chalk. It produces sparks when struck with steel and is used in the manufacture of pottery, flint glass, and road-construction materials. Formula: SiO 2

2. any piece of flint, esp one used as a primitive tool or for striking fire

3. a small cylindrical piece of an iron alloy, used in cigarette lighters

4. Also called: flint glass, white flint. colourless glass other than plate glass

5. See optical flint

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verb

1. (tr) to fit or provide with a flint

Flint ² British  

/ flɪnt /

noun

1. a town in NE Wales, in Flintshire, on the Dee estuary. Pop: 11 936 (2001)

2. a city in SE Michigan: closure of the car production plants led to a high level of unemployment. Pop: 120 292 (2003 est)

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flint Scientific  

/ flĭnt /

1. A very hard, gray to black variety of chalcedony that makes sparks when it is struck with steel. It breaks with a conchoidal fracture.

2. The dark gray to black variety of chert.

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Other Word Forms

Derived Forms

• flintlike
  adjective

Inflected Forms

Nouns

• flints
  plural

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Etymology

Origin of flint

before 900; Middle English, Old English; cognate with Middle Dutch vlint, Danish flint; cf. plinth

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Explanation

Flint is a very hard type of rock. Ever since humans first learned to make tools, back in the Stone Age, they've used flint. Through history, flint has been used for sharp tools, in walls and buildings, for making sparks to start fires, and in jewelry and pottery. You can also use the word figuratively, to mean a quality of hardness or even cruelty in a someone's personality: "The flint in his nature made him unsympathetic even to the most pitiful crying child."

Example Sentences

See Examples For:

flint Flint flints

There, archaeologists found two pieces of flint encased in birch tar residue, indicating the flint pieces were once hafted to other objects.

From Science Magazine ● Nov. 22, 2024

You have to be particular about muzzle-loading a flintlock and making sure the flint is in place.

From Salon ● Aug. 4, 2024

Most of the clues come as pottery, flint tools and bones.

From New York Times ● Mar. 19, 2024

Another extraordinary find was an Iron Age hoard of 26 Iron age gold coins, hidden inside a flint container.

From BBC ● Jan. 24, 2024

Beside him stood a tall young man, and a girl about Torak’s own age: Both had dark-red hair, smooth, pitiless faces, and flint arrows trained on his heart.

From "Wolf Brother" by Michelle Paver

The roughly 1,000 lost jobs mark the biggest round of layoffs since 2022 for the company, my colleagues Joe Flint and Jessica Toonkel report in an exclusive for The Wall Street Journal.

From The Wall Street Journal ● Oct. 15, 2026

"We are seeing more and more regular people willing to pay for a special experience at sport," says Richard Flint, chairman of Seat Unique, an online platform specialising in hospitality and VIP ticketing for events.

From BBC ● Oct. 8, 2026

Graffiti has been washed from the Frank Putnam Flint fountain, but it remains a broken-down monument to neglect, as it has for most of the past 60 years.

From Los Angeles Times ● Sep. 25, 2026

Dave Marsh was born in Flint, Michigan, where his dad worked on the railroad and did not appreciate the length of his son’s hair or the music he listened to.

From Salon ● Sep. 8, 2026

“It’s peaceful in my dungeons,” grumbled Old Flint.

From "A Dance with Dragons" by George R. R. Martin

In the chapter titled “Cerium,” Levi describes how, wracked with hunger, he stole iron-cerium rods to make flints for cigarette lighters so that he could exchange them for bread.

From The Wall Street Journal ● Aug. 24, 2026

In the chemical industry, cerium is widely used in oil refining and glass polishing -- as well as in flints for cigarette lighters.

From Barron's ● Feb. 4, 2026

More than 3,500 finds were discovered during the excavation, including animal bone, glass and worked flints and 1,405 broken pieces of pottery.

From BBC ● Jan. 9, 2024

Although the electric drills used today are a far cry from the handheld flints and metal tools used thousands of years ago, the objective — making a hole in the skull — is the same.

From Washington Post ● Mar. 14, 2023

“Might have taken three flints in this case.”

From "Hope Springs" by Jaime Berry

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