Etymology

flint

F4L1I1N1T1

Today it means: 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. Full definition →

Middle English flynt ← Old English flint ← Proto-West Germanic *flint
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The story

  1. Proto-West Germanic*flint
  2. Old Englishflint
  3. Middle Englishflynt
  4. English todayflint

From Middle English flynt, flint, from Old English flint, from Proto-West Germanic *flint, from Proto-Germanic *flintaz (compare Dutch vlint, flint (“flint, cobblestone”), German Flins, Flint (“flint, pebble”), Danish flint (“flint”)), from Proto-Indo-European *(s)plind- (“to split, cleave”) (compare Irish slinn (“slate, shingle”), Ancient Greek πλίνθος (plínthos)), from *(s)pley- (“to split”). More at split.

Words from the same roots

Middle Englishflynt all →

Flynt

Proto-West Germanic*flint all →

hälleflinta

Proto-Germanic*flintaz all →

flinder

Etymology from Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.