flint Meaning, Definition & Usage

  1. noun a hard kind of stone; a form of silica more opaque than chalcedony
  2. noun a river in western Georgia that flows generally south to join the Chattahoochee River at the Florida border where they form the Apalachicola River
    Flint River.
  3. noun a city in southeast central Michigan near Detroit; automobile manufacturing
  4. adjective satellite showing unfeeling resistance to tender feelings
    obdurate; flinty; granitic; stony.
    • his flinty gaze
    • the child's misery would move even the most obdurate heart

WordNet

Flint noun
Etymology
AS. flint, akin to Sw. flinta, Dan. flint; cf. OHG. flins flint, G. flinte gun (cf. E. flintlock), perh. akin to Gr. brick. Cf. Plinth.
Definitions
  1. (Min.) 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.

Webster 1913