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flinty

UK/ˈflɪnti/US/ˈflɪnti/
adjectiveC2Rare in speech; mostly a word you read · #13,237 of 15,258neutral

Flinty means hard and unyielding in character. A flinty stare, flinty determination, flinty and cold.

It is admiring and chilling at once, because flint is both useful and unforgiving. Wine writers use it of a mineral quality in white wine, especially chablis. Flint itself is a stone that breaks with a sharp edge, which is why it made the first tools.

Definitions of flinty

  1. 1adjectiveflintyHard and unyielding in character.C2

    “She gave him a flinty stare that made it clear she would not change her mind.”

flinty is a quality of hardness.

Where it comes from

  1. Proto-Indo-European

    *(s)plind- — to split, cleave

  2. Proto-Germanic

    *flintaz

  3. Proto-West Germanic

    *flint

  4. Old English

    flint

  5. Middle English

    flynt

  6. English

    flint

  7. English, today

    flinty

Built from

  • flint · Dutch — flint, cobblestone
  • Flint · German — flint, pebble
  • *(s)pley- · Proto-Indo-European — to split

From flint + -y. flint comes 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), from (s)pley- (“to split”). More at split.

Etymology from Wiktionary, CC BY-SA

Practised in A Song of Ice and Fire

Practise this word

flinty in the wild

  • The novel explores both Joey's relationship to his widowed mother, a flinty woman who reveres her farm, and to Peggy, a kind, sensual woman.

    Of the Farm

  • The flinty fields are thought to resemble its mountain breeding grounds.

    Balsdean

  • The unwashed is flinty; fair roast, no special merit in cup.

    All about coffee· William H. Ukers

  • The winter wheats are, as a rule, more soft and starchy than the spring wheats, which are usually corneous or flinty to different degrees.

    Human Foods and Their Nutritive Value· Harry Snyder

From Wikipedia, CC BY-SA 4.0. These sentences were written by other people about their own subjects; they are here to show the word at work, not as anybody’s opinion.

From Project Gutenberg, public domain. These sentences are from real books, shown to illustrate the word at work.

Related words

the Flint family

flint

flinty — used about once every 20,553 pages · #13,237 · point at the bar for the others