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  • flinders
    flinders
    plural noun
    splinters; small pieces or fragments.
  • Flinders
    Flinders
    noun
    Matthew, 1774–1814, English navigator and explorer: surveyed coast of Australia.

flinders

1 American  
[flin-derz] / ˈflɪn dərz /

plural noun

  1. splinters; small pieces or fragments.


Flinders 2 American  
[flin-derz] / ˈflɪn dərz /

noun

  1. Matthew, 1774–1814, English navigator and explorer: surveyed coast of Australia.

  2. a river in NE Australia, flowing NW to the Gulf of Carpentaria. 520 miles (837 km) long.


flinders British  
/ ˈflɪndəz /

plural noun

  1. rare small fragments or splinters (esp in the phrase fly into flinders )

"Collins English Dictionary — Complete & Unabridged" 2012 Digital Edition © William Collins Sons & Co. Ltd. 1979, 1986 © HarperCollins Publishers 1998, 2000, 2003, 2005, 2006, 2007, 2009, 2012

Etymology

Origin of flinders

1400–50; late Middle English flendris, perhaps < Scandinavian; compare Norwegian flindra splinter; perhaps akin to flint

Example Sentences

Examples are provided to illustrate real-world usage of words in context. Any opinions expressed do not reflect the views of Dictionary.com.

See Examples For:

He’s been at it since “Independence Day” in 1996 when aliens blasted the White House to flinders.

From Seattle Times Feb. 4, 2022

A stack of old Washington Post stories on the District’s street nomenclature had been reduced to flinders.

From Washington Post

Fishing craft were splintered, fishermen's shacks blown to flinders.

From Time Magazine Archive

Now, with their summer homes smashed to flinders, with even their beach, real estate so devastated that many an owner thought of letting it go in default of taxes, this opposition was silenced.

From Time Magazine Archive

There was a small log cabin there, smashed to flinders.

From "The Name of the Wind" by Patrick Rothfuss

The study involved paleontologists from Flinders University and Canterbury Museum, as well as volcanologists Joel Baker of the University of Auckland and Simon Barker of Victoria University of Wellington.

From Science Daily Jun. 23, 2026

Lead author Corinne Mensforth, a PhD candidate from the Flinders Palaeontology Lab, says the fossil is especially valuable because it preserves the internal bones of the skull.

From Science Daily May 25, 2026

"If they think it's gone well, it's because nothing has gone wrong," says Giselle Bastin, an associate professor at Flinders University with a research interest in Australia's relationship with the monarchy.

From BBC Apr. 18, 2026

A follow-up study in 2024 involving Flinders, Greifswald, and McMaster Universities showed that antibodies from vaccine-related and infection-related cases were indistinguishable.

From Science Daily Apr. 10, 2026

In his excavations at Tel el-Amarna, Professor Flinders Petrie has discovered fragments of lists of cuneiform characters, as well as of comparative dictionaries of Semitic Babylonian and Sumerian.

From The Egypt of the Hebrews and Herodotos by Sayce, A. H. (Archibald Henry)

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