Flint sb.

Forms: 1–2 flint, 3–4 south. vlint, -ynt, (4 flent, 5 flynd), 4–6 flynt(e, 3– flint. [OE. flint str. masc. = MDu. vlint, related to OHG. flins [MHG. vlins, mod.Ger. dial. flins), Da. flint str. masc., Sw. flinta wk. fem.; usually regarded as cogn. with Gr. πλίνθος tile.]

  1.  A kind of hard stone, most commonly of a steely gray colour, found in roundish nodules of varying size, usually covered with a white incrustation. In early and poetic use often put for hard stone in general.

  Chemically, it is one of the purest native forms of silica, and by modern mineralogists is classed among the chalcedonic varieties of that mineral.

a. 1000.  Crist, 6 (Gr.).

c. 1000.  Ælfric, Num. xx. 11. He … sloh … þone flint, and þær fleow sona of þam flinte wæter.

c. 1175.  Lamb. Hom., 129. Þurh þisse tacne Moyses werp ut þet welle weter of þan herda flinte.

1377.  Langl., P. Pl., B. XIV. 64. And oute of þe flynte spronge þe flode · þat folke & bestes dronke.

a. 1400–50.  Alexander, 4447.

1594.  Spenser, Amoretti, xviii.

1758.  Johnson, Idler, No. 96, 16 Feb., ¶ 1. His martial atchievements remain engraved on a pillar of flint in the Rocks of Hanga.

1832.  G. R. Porter, Porcelain & Gl., 28. Flint is silica in a state nearly approaching to purity.

1855.  Longf. Hiaw., IV. 260.

  b.  As a type of anything hard or unyielding.

c. 1320.  Sir Tristr., 1451.

1590.  Spenser, F. Q., I. ii. 26.

1606.  Shaks., Ant. & Cl., IV. ix. 16.

1814.  Scott, Wav., xlvi. Callum, flint to other considerations, was penetrable to superstition.

1853.  C. Brontë, Villette, xix. Sometimes he harassed me, in spite of my resolution to bear and hear; in the midst of the indescribable gall-honey pleasure of thus bearing and hearing, he struck so on the flint of what firmness I owned, that it emitted fire once and again.

  2.  This stone, or a fragment of it, with reference to its property of giving off sparks when struck with iron or steel. Flint and steel: an apparatus consisting of a piece of each of these substances used for procuring fire by the ignition of tinder, touchwood, etc.

a. 700.  Epinal Gloss., 805. Petrafocaria, flint.

c. 1050.  Gloss., in Wr.-Wülcker, 469. Petra focaria, fyrstan, flint.

c. 1330.  Amis and Amiloun, 1321.

c. 1450.  Golagros & Gaw., 758. As fyre that fleis fra the flynt.

1589.  R. Harvey, Pl. Perc. (1590), 20. When the steele and the flint be knockde togither, a man may light his match by the sparkle.

1606.  Shaks., Tr. & Cr., III. iii. 257. ‘There were wit in this head, an ’twould out;’ and so there is, but it lies as coldly in him as fire in a flint, which will not show without knocking.

1665.  Hooke, Microg., 46. If the most Acute Des Cartes had applied himself experimentally to have examined what substance it was that caused that shining of the falling Sparks struck from a Flint and a Steel, he would certainly have a little altered his Hypothesis.

1794.  Mrs. Radcliffe, Myst. Udolpho, xxxi. Ugo found a flint, and the torch was lighted.

1814.  Scott, Ld. of Isles, II. xxvi.

1833.  L. Ritchie, Wand. by Loire, 81. Striking a light with the flint and steel, which a French peasant carries for the service of his pipe.

  fig.  1656.  B. Harris, trans. Parival’s The History of This Iron Age, 35. His offers were as flints, out of which they drew fire to kindle the warre, with so much the greater animosity.

1677.  Horneck, Gt. Law Consid., vii. (1704), 422. My Heart is all Flint, but when this Stone is struck sufficiently, it will then send forth Holy Fire.

  b.  A fragment of this stone used to kindle the powder in a FLINT-LOCK.

1660.  Boyle, New Exp. Phys. Mech., xiv. 100. We likewise caus’d a piece of Steel to be made of the form and bigness of the Flint, in whose place we put it.

1679.  Levinz, in Tryals of White, & other Jesuits, 10. They were to kill the King in St. Jame’s-Park, but it pleased God, that the Flint of the Pistol failed.

1752.  J. B. Maccoll, in Scots Mag., Aug. (1753), 401/2. The … gun had an old wore flint in it.

1808.  Wellington, in Gurw., Desp., IV. 49. Each soldier will have with him three good flints.

1811.  Byron, Hints from Hor., 555.

1833.  Regul. Instr. Cavalry, I. 30. In fixing the flint of Carbines or Pistols the flat side of it must be placed upwards or downwards, according to the size and shape, and the proportion which the height of the cock bears to the hammer.

  3.  A nodule or pebble of flint. In early and poetic use often applied to any hard piece of stone.

c. 1300.  Havelok, 2666.

1523.  Ld. Berners, Froiss., I. xvii. 18. There ronneth a ryuer ful of flynt and great stones, called the water of Tyne.

c. 1611.  Chapman, Iliad, VI. 541.

1634.  Sir T. Herbert, Trav., 3. They knew no God, but Nature, were ignorant of the use of fire, shaved with flint stones, gave their children to be nurst by Goats, cultured the earth with hornes of Oxen, abhominated the slaughter of beasts.

1662.  J. Davies, trans. Mandelslo’s Trav., 276. They use in their buildings, the Flints, which they find by the Sea-side, under water, in regard they better bear the sharpness of the Air.

1740.  Dyer, Ruins Rome, 279.

1816.  W. Smith, Strata Ident., 7. In some parts there are but few of those innumerable knotty and irregular Flints, but owe their form to a nucleus of some such organization.

1876.  Page, Adv. Text-bk. Geol., xviii. 340. Traces of stratification are scarcely distinguishable in the mass of chalk, but are clearly evinced by the lines of flints and other nodular concretions.

  4.  Phrases. As true as flint, used to express firmness in allegiance. To get or wring water from a flint, used to express extreme difficulty in doing something. To skin a flint: a hyperbolical exemplification of avarice. (To set one’s face) like a flint: firmly, steadfastly.

1382.  Wyclif, Ezek. iii. 9. Y ȝaue thi face as an adamaunt, and as a flynt.

a. 1592.  Greene, George a Greene, Dram. Wks. II. 189. Shoe. [aside.] Faith, I see it is as hard to get water out of a flint as to get him to have a bout with me.

1597.  1st Pt. Return fr. Parnass., I. i. 141. Ingenioso is in towne followinge a goutie patron by the smell, hoping to wringe some water from a flinte.

1655.  Fuller, The Church-History of Britain, III. vi. § 37. They would, in a manner, make pottage of a flint.

1847.  Marryat, Childr. N. Forest, xi. As true as flint was Jacob Armitage, as I’m a born man!

1859.  Kingsley, Misc. (1860), I. 321. It is one against which every man must set his face like a flint.

1884.  Besant, Childr. Gibeon, II. xxxi. Just as the toper squeezes the empty bottle and the miser skins the flint.

  II.  Transferred senses.

  5.  A flint-like substance, a. (see quot. 1892). b. (see quot. 1847.) c. short for flint-hide (see 10).

  a.  1709.  Blair, in Phil. Trans., XXVII. 102. They [horns] … have a Protuberance arising from it [the Scull], and filling up their Capacity, if cavous, commonly call’d the Flint.

1892.  Northumbld. Gloss., Flint, the core of an animal’s horn…. The term is likewise applied to the hard excrescence formed on a cow’s head where a horn has been knocked off.

  b.  1847.  Halliwell, Flints, refuse barley in making malt.

  c.  1885.  C. T. Davis, Manuf. Leather, I. i. 54. Dry flint is a thoroughly dry hide that has not been salted.

  6.  An avaricious person, a miser, skin-flint. rare.

1840.  Dickens, Old C. Shop, vii. It ’s equally plain that the money which the old flint—rot him—first taught me to expect that I should share with her at his death, will all be hers, is it not?

  7.  slang. (See quots.)

1764.  Chron., in Ann. Reg., 66/2. Journeymen taylors … who, refusing to comply with the masters terms, and the regulations of the magistrate, call themselves Flints, in contradistinction to those who submit, and are in derision stiled by the first Dungs.

1778.  Foote, Tailors, II. v.

1820.  Scott, Ivanhoe, xliii. To see how matters are to be conducted, or whether the heroes of the day are, in the heroic language of insurgent tailors, flints or dunghills.

1859.  Slang Dict., s.v. Flint, an operative who works for a ‘society’ master—full wages.

  III.  attrib. and Comb.

  8.  simple attrib. (or adj.): Of flint.

c. 1175.  Lamb. Hom., 81. Me sculde in þe ehtuþe dei þet knaue child embsniþen mid ane ulint sexe.

1552.  Huloet, Flynt, or of flynte, silicens.

1711.  Hearne, Collect. (Oxf, Hist. Soc.), III. 163. A great many of those urns found in Britain are Danish & not Roman, particularly one found with a Flint Weapon and divers other Antiquities lately in Yorkshire.

1851.  D. Wilson, Preh. Ann. (1863), II. III. iii. 87. Flint arrows and other primitive weapons have been frequently found, accompanied occasionally by more valuable relics.

1884.  Dawson, in Leisure H., Aug., 490/2. Flint knives were used for sacrificial and surgical purposes, and for shaving the head.

  b.  ellipt. for FLINT-GLASS.

1755.  Oppenheim’s Patent Specif., No. 707. The compounds of the flint contain two parts of lead, one part sand, and one part of saltpetre or borax.

1816.  J. Smith, The Panorama of Science and Art, II. 211. The plates were made of French glass, as this is found to produce the greatest quantity of electricity next to English flint.

  9.  General comb.: a. simple attrib., as flint-fragment, -nodule, -rock, -tile. b. objective, as flint-digger, -worker; flint-using adj. c. instrumental, as flint-headed, -wrapped adjs. d. parasynthetic and similative, as † flint-edged, † -grey, -hard, † -hardy adjs.

1809.  Sporting Mag., XXXIII. Feb., 263/1. GLUTTONY.—A few days since, a flint-digger, on the new Brighton road, undertook, for a trifling wager, to devour 4lbs. of beef and a sixpenny loaf, and to wash all down with two quarts of beer, within half an hour; and this task he actually completed in ten minutes and three seconds, little more than a third of the time allowed.

1665.  Dryden, Ind. Emperor, III. iii.

a. 1000.  Riddles, iv. 19 (Gr.). *Flintgræȝne flod.

1594.  J. Dickenson, Arisbas (1878), 77.

1606.  N. Baxter, Man Created, in Farr, S. P. Jas. I. (1848), 238.

1884.  Dawson, Rough Notes of a Naturalist’s Visit to Egypt, in The Leisure Hour, XXXIII. Aug., 490/2. There is good reason to believe that these flints were largely used by the ancient Egyptians. Flint picks have been found in some of their mines. They used *flint-headed arrows for shooting birds and other animals.

1879.  Sir G. G. Scott, Lect. Archit., I. 220. The Romans … united in their structures the use of all materials of which their world-wide dominion gave them command, and were equally successful in employing in them the most stupendous masses of marble, as at Baalbec, the granite of Egypt, or the *flint-nodules of Kent.

1871.  Palgrave, Lyr. Poems, 77.

1428.  in Heath, Grocers’ Comp. (1869), 6. Chalke, *flint-tyles [printed fluit] and estriche boarde.

1894.  Academy, XLVI. 18 Aug., 120/3. Demonstrating the existence of a working-place of the old *flint-using folk.

1876.  D. Wilson, Preh. Man iii. (ed. 3), 79. The whole region of Ohio and Kentucky is rich in remains of the old *flint-workers.

1646.  G. Daniel, Poems, Wks. 1878, I. 12.

  10.  Special comb.: flint-coal (see quot.); flint-core (see quot. and CORE sb.¹ 5); flint-find, a discovery of flint implements; flint-flake, a ‘flake’ or chip of flint used in prehistoric times as a cutting instrument; flint-folk, people who, in prehistoric times, used flint implements; flint-gravel, gravel containing flints; flint-gun, a gun with a flint-lock; flint-head, an arrow-head made of flint; † flint-heart a. = next; flint-hearted a., hard-hearted; flint-hide (see quot.); flint-knacker = next; flint-knapper, one who fashions flints to any desired shape; so flint-knapping, fashioning flints (for gun-locks, etc.); flint-man, one of the ‘flint-folk’; flint-mill, (a) Pottery, a mill in which calcined flints are ground to powder for mixing with clay to form slip for porcelain; (b) Mining, ‘a mode formerly adopted for lighting mines, in which flints studded on the surface of a wheel were made to strike against a steel and give a quick succession of sparks to light the miner at his work’ (Knight); † flint-moving a., that would move a heart of flint; flint-paring = flint-skinning; flint-pit, a pit from which flint has been taken; flint-rope, the stem of the sponge Hyalonema Sieboldii (Cass.); flint-skinning, fig. the action of ‘skinning a flint,’ parsimonious saving; flint-soot (see quot.); flint-sponge, the sponge Hyalonema mirabilis (Cent. Dict.); flint-wall, ‘a wall made of broken flints set in mortar, and with quoins of masonry’ (Knight); flint-ware, U.S. name for STONE-WARE, q.v.; flint-wheat (see quot.); flint-wood, a name in New South Wales for Eucalyptus pilularis; † flint-wort, a name for aconite, suggested by Pliny’s statement that it grows on bare rocks (nudis cautibus).

1841.  Hartshorne, Salopia Antiqua, Gloss., 427. *Flint Coal, a coal measure so called, partly from its hardness, and partly from reposing upon a siliceous rock.

1865.  Athenæum, 7 Jan., 23/2. Small arrow-heads and *flint-cores, from which such articles had been flaked, were found.

1865.  Lubbock, Preh. Times, iv. (1890), 111. *‘Flintfinds,’ however, resembling in many respects these Danish ‘coastfinds,’ are not altogether unknown in this country.

1851.  D. Wilson, Preh. Ann. (1863), I. I. 175. The rude and unshapely fragments of flint known by the name of *Flint Flakes, are now recognised as specimens of the first stages of weapon-manufacture of the period to which they belong.

1879.  Lubbock, Sci. Lect., v. 155. The simplest flint-flake forms a capital knife, and accordingly we find that some simple stone implements were in use long after metal had replaced the beautifully-worked axes, knives, and daggers, which must always have been very difficult to make.

1874.  W. B. Carpenter, Ment. Phys., I. ii. § 88. Races of men, which (like the old *‘flint-folk’) had made but a very slight advance in the arts of life.

1865.  Lubbock, Preh. Times, xii. (1869), 408. All the *flint gravels in the south-east of England have been produced by the destruction of chalk.

1849.  E. E. Napier, Excurs. S. Africa, I. x. 161. This inconvenience—with a *flint gun—is generally to be remedied without firing off the piece, or drawing the charge.

1796.  Morse, Amer. Geog., II. 151. The stones which the country people call elf-arrow heads, and to which they assign a supernatural origin and use, were probably the *flint-heads of arrows made use of by the Caledonians and ancient Scots.

1827.  G. Higgins, Celtic Druids, 226. The Celts and flint-heads prove nothing.

1596.  Edw. III., II. i. 14.

1560.  Becon, Flower Godly Prayers, Pref. Wks. II. 166 b. No man, excepte he be *flint hearted, can rede the history of the destruction of Hierusalem, as Josephus doth describe it, without most large teares.

1632.  Massinger & Field, Fatal Dowry, IV. iv.

1885.  A. Watt, Leather Manuf., iii. 30. Dried Hides … are sometimes called *‘flint’ hides, from their excessive hardness.

1879.  Encycl. Brit., IX. 325/2 (ed. 9). In 1876 there were 21 *flint knappers in Brandon, and about 80,000 flints were sent away weekly.

1887.  Illustr. Lond. News, 15 Oct., 468. The … almost extinct trade of *flint-knapping.

1872.  Bagehot, Physics & Pol. (1876), 100. We are dealing with people capable of history when we speak of great ideas, not with pre-historic *flint-men or the present savages.

1757.  Brindley, in Smiles, Engineers (1874), I. 146. With Mr. Badley to Matherso about a now *flint mill [in the Potteries] upon a windey day.

a. 1852.  Moore, Sylph’s Ball, viii. 29.

1600.  S. Nicholson, Acolastus (1876), 36.

1860.  Motley, Netherl., I. vi. 323. During this tedious *flint-paring, Antwerp, which might have been saved, was falling into the hands of Philip.

1891.  D. Wilson, Right Hand, v. 62. A series of explorations of a number of *flint-pits, known as Grimes’s Graves, near Brandon, in Norfolk.

1873.  Miss Braddon, Str. & Pilgr., I. viii. 198. Her small economies, her domestic cheese-paring, and *flint-skinning were as so many drops of water as compared with the vast ocean of his expenditure.

1577.  B. Googe, Heresbach’s Husb., III. (1578), 137. Take *Flint soote, that is hard dryed vpon a Post or roofe, and beate it into powder with Salt.

1741.  Chambers, Cycl., s.v. Wall, *Flint, or Boulder-Walls, are frequently used in divers parts for fence-walls, a-round courts, gardens, &c.

1782.  J. Scott, Ep. i., The Garden, 15.

1859.  All Year Round, No. 32. 3 Dec., 126/2. Turkish *flint-wheat is one of those recommended as ‘a hardy, full variety, with a dark-coloured chaff, a very heavy beard, and a long, flinty, light-coloured berry.’

1565.  Golding, Ovid’s Met., VII. (1587), 94 a.