flint
/flɪnt/
"flint" is a 5-letter English headword indexed on PlainSpell.
The verdict
“flint” is a moderately-common English word, ranked #10,049 in English word frequency and used as a noun.
- #10,049
- frequency rank, English
- 5
- letters
- 8
- tracked misspellings
- 20
- confusable pairs
According to Wiktionary data (CC BY-SA, analyzed May 6, 2026) - 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.
Visual similarity to commonly confused words
How many letter changes separate each confused pair (Levenshtein distance, normalized).
Source: PlainSpell confusable corpus (Wiktionary, CC BY-SA).
| Property | Value |
|---|---|
| Headword | flint |
| Language | English |
| Part of speech | Noun |
| IPA | /flɪnt/ |
| Letters | 5 |
| Frequency rank | #10,049 |
| Misspellings tracked | 8 |
| Confusable pairs | 20 |
| Source | Wiktionary (kaikki.org) |
Where “flint” sits in English frequency
Spelling & Dictionary Insight
The English entry for flint is 5 letters long, classified as a noun, and transcribed in the International Phonetic Alphabet as /flɪnt/. Corpus data places it at rank #10,049 in overall English word frequency, marking it as uncommon enough that many writers pause before typing it. Wiktionary records 5 distinct senses for this headword, so context determines which meaning a reader should apply.
Our generated misspelling index lists 8 likely wrong-spelling variants for flint, with forms such as "fflint", "filnt", and "flinnt". Every one of these variants traces to a single-character edit -- an added or dropped letter, a swapped consonant, or a vowel swap -- the kind of slip a spell-checker is built to catch. It also participates in 20 confusable-pair relationships, "flip", "font", "front", and more, a pairing that trips writers up because the two words share enough sound or shape to blur together.
Etymologically, the entry records: 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-Europ… The correct English form is flint, spelled F-L-I-N-T.
Definition
- 1A 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.
- 2A piece of flint, such as a gunflint, used to produce a spark by striking it with a firestriker.
- 3A small cylinder of some other material of the same function in a cigarette lighter, etc.
- 4A variety of maize/corn with a hard outer hull.
- 5Anything figuratively hard.
Etymology
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.
This word in other languages
Common misspellings
Also misspelled as: fflint,filnt,flinnt,flintt,flitn,fllint,flnit,lfint
Misspelling Pattern Breakdown
How far each generated variant is from the correct spelling of flint - counted as single-character edits (an insertion, a deletion, or a substituted letter). The larger the bar, the easier the typo is to spot; one-edit slips are the ones that sneak past readers.
Definitions, pronunciation, and etymology for this entry are drawn from Wiktionary via the kaikki.org structured extract (CC BY-SA); frequency ordering uses the FrequencyWords open word-frequency list (2018 English corpus, MIT). See the methodology for how each field is sourced and updated.
Frequently Asked Questions
How do you spell "flint"?
What does "flint" mean?
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Using “flint”
The practical upshot for anyone who landed here from a spell-check.
- The one correct English spelling is F-L-I-N-T - every other letter order is a misspelling in standard orthography.
- Say it as /flɪnt/ (IPA); tap the speaker on the pronunciation badge to hear it where audio exists.
- Don't mix it up with “flip” - see the side-by-side comparison. flint vs flip
- Browse more English words and confusable pairs in the same reference. English words
Data Source
Wiktionary (via kaikki.org), licensed under CC BY-SA & GFDL. Word ordering uses an open word-frequency list; misspelling variants are generated by edit-distance from the correct headword.