flint
A hard, fine-grained quartz that fractures conchoidally and generates sparks when struck against a material such as steel, because tiny chips of the steel are heated to incandescence and burn in air.
Example
“He used flint to make a fire.”
Other meanings
A piece of flint, such as a gunflint, used to produce a spark by striking it with a firestriker.
“He used a flint to make a fire.”
A small cylinder of some other material of the same function in a cigarette lighter, etc.
Word history
From Old English "flint".
Where this comes from
This definition is adapted from “flint” on Wiktionary, by its contributors, published under CC BY-SA 4.0. This page is published under the same licence.