a. [f. FLINT sb. + -Y1.]
1. Of or consisting of flint; derived from flint.
1591. Shaks., 1 Hen. VI., II. i. 26.
| God is our Fortresse, in whose conquering name | |
| Let vs resolue to scale their flinty bulwarkes. |
1714. Gay, Trivia, I. 11.
| To pave thy Realm, and smooth the broken Ways, | |
| Earth from her Womb a flinty Tribute pays. |
1799. Kirwan, Geol. Ess., 447. Pieces of fossil wood have been found penetrated with flinty matters.
1810. Scott, Lady of L., I. xi.
| Each purple peak, each flinty spire, | |
| Was bathed in floods of living fire. |
1891. T. Hardy, Tess, I. viii. 100. Sometimes a wheel was off the ground, it seemed, for many yards; sometimes a stone was sent spinning over the hedge, and flinty sparks from the horse’s hoofs outshone the daylight.
b. Full of flint-stones.
1626. Bacon, Sylva, § 599. Some very good Husbands doe suspect, that the Gathering vp of Flints, in Flinty Ground, and Laying them on Heapes, (which is much vsed,) is no good Husbandry; For that they would keepe the Ground Warme.
1802. Playfair, Illustr. Hutton. Th., 108. To afford, for example, such a body of flinty gravel as is found about Kensington, what an enormous quantity of chalk rock must have been destroyed?
2. Resembling flint; a. in texture or in color.
1641. H. Best, Rural Economy in Yorkshire in 1641 (Surtees), 99. It is usually a blea, flinty, wheate; that is, if yow bite a corne asunder with your teeth, yow shall see that the meale of it is of a darkish, bley, and flinty colour.
1779. J. Moore, View Soc. Fr., II. iv. 56–7. The principal cascades are in the middle, and on each side are stairs of large black stones of a flinty texture, brought from a rock at a considerable distance.
1853. Kane, Grinnell Exp., xxx. (1856), 258. For a long time we had collected our water from the beautiful fresh pools of the icebergs and floes; now we had to quarry out the blocks in flinty, glassy lumps, and then melt it in tins for our daily drink.
1859. [See flint-wheat, FLINT sb. 10].
b. Having the characteristic qualities of flint; hard, impenetrable, rugged.
1541. R. Copland, Galyen’s Terapeutyke, A. iij. As longe as the cause lasteth that before made the vlceres harde and flynty.
1602. Marston, Ant. & Mel., I. Wks. 1856, I. 17. The flintie rocks groand at his plaints.
1697. Dryden, Virg. Georg., III. 356.
| Hard’ning his Limbs with painful Exercise, | |
| And rough upon the flinty Rock he lyes. |
1847. Emerson Poems, Monadnoc Wks. (Bohn) I. 435.
| Whilst the country’s flinty face, | |
| Like wax, their fashioning skill betrays, | |
| To fill the hollows, sink the hills, | |
| Bridge gulfs, drain swamps, build dams and mills. |
1872. Baker, Nile Tribut., xii. 202. Hardly was he in the saddle, than away flew the mare over the loose shingles that formed the dry bed of the river, scattering the rounded pebbles in the air from her flinty hoofs, while her rider in the vigour of delight threw himself almost under her belly while at full speed, and picked up stones from the ground, which he flung, and again caught as they descended.
1884. York Herald, 19 Aug., 7/2. All the new grain comes to hand in a flinty condition.
3. fig. Of a person or his heart: Obdurate, unfeeling, hard-hearted. (Cf. stony.)
1536. Latimer, Lett. to Cromwell, in Serm. & Rem. (1845), 372. If his heart be so stony, so flinty, that so great pity and compassion as it cannot reconcile him to the king’s highness sufficiently.
1601. Shaks., All’s Well that ends Well, IV. iv. 7.
| Gratitude | |
| Through flintie Tartars bosome would peepe forth. |
1795. Burke, Th. Scarcity, Wks. 1842, II. 250. Is the poor labourer to be abandoned to the flinty heart and griping hand of base self-interest, supported by the sword of law, especially when there is reason to suppose that the very avarice of farmers themselves has concurred with the errours of government to bring famine on the land?
1829. Carlyle, Misc. (1857), I. 272. We ourselves have known the flintiest men, who professed to have wept over them.
1878. Miss Braddon, Open Verd., I. ii. 29. ‘Fathers have flinty hearts,’ retorted Kenrick lightly. ‘That’s an old saying, but sons and daughters generally contrive to follow their own inclinations in spite of paternal flintiness.
quasi-adv.
1580. T. Lupton, Sivqila; too Good to be True, 72. Their stonie hearts are so flintie hard, that neyther these words, nor yet the most terrible threatnings in all the Scriptures besides, can penetrate any part thereof.
b. Of immaterial things: Hard; harsh.
1613. Uncasing of Machivils Instr., 14.
| This is the flinty course of this our age, | |
| This is the time brings humors in a rage. |
1643. Milton, Divorce, II. xvi. (1851), 103. We lay such a flat solecisme upon the gracious, and certainly not inexorable, not ruthlesse and flinty ordinance of mariage.
1888. Star, 28 Nov., 2/5. Mr. George struck out sharp, strong, flinty sentences.
4. attrib. and Comb., as flinty-looking adj.; flinty-hearted a., (a) of a person: Hard-hearted; (b) Having a hard or flint-like core.
1626. Massinger, Rom. Actor, III. ii.
| If he were not | |
| A flinty-hearted slave, he could not use | |
| One of his form so harshly. |
1845. Ld. Campbell, Chancellors (1857), V. cxi. 192. When the lovers had plighted their mutual troth, and thought that a long career of domestic happiness was before them, the flinty-hearted father asked what settlement was to be made upon his daughter, corresponding to the fortune he meant to bestow upon her?
1860. Dickens, The Uncommercial Traveller, in All Year Round, No. 48, 24 March, 515/1. You order the bill, but your waiter cannot bring your bill yet, because he is bringing, instead, three flinty-hearted potatoes and two grim head of broccoli, like the occasional ornaments on area railings, badly boiled.
1890. Pall Mall G., 29 Aug., 7/2. Presently you feel as if you had been struck with some force by a small object, and a dark, flinty-looking grain rebounds from your face on to the book which you are reading.
Hence Flintily adv., in a flinty manner; Flintiness, the quality of being flinty.
1607. Hieron, Wks., I. 362. Where is longing for Gods mercy in Christ, when there is an vniuersall flintinesse in mens hearts, that the greatest part of men know not what it is to neede a Sauiour?
1840. Dickens, Old C. Shop, xi. Some people, sir, would have been all flintiness and granite.
1871. Proctor, Light Sc., 290. We had always recognized city dust as a nuisance, and had supposed that it derived the peculiar grittiness and flintiness of its structure from the constant macadamizing of city roads.
1879. Tinsley’s Mag., XXIV. 35/2. For all her creamy goodness of heart her aunt was a flintily just woman, and would not hesitate to sacrifice her own feelings and those of her niece in the cause of what she deemed honour.
