(n.) A lock for a gun or pistol, having a flint fixed in the hammer, which on striking the steel ignites the priming.
(n.) A hand firearm fitted with a flintlock; esp., the old-fashioned musket of European and other armies.
Example Sentences:
Gunflint
Definition:
(n.) A sharpened flint for the lock of a gun, to ignite the charge. It was in common use before the introduction of percussion caps.
Example Sentences:
(1) Gunflint-type assemblages had a wide geographic distribution in middle Precambrian times, and these assemblages may eventually prove useful as biostratigraphic indices.
(2) Occurrence of well-preserved rod-shaped and coccoid bacteria in the Precambrian Gunflint chert (1.9 x 10(9) years old) has been demonstrated by electron microscopy.
(3) Two billion year old black chert lenses from the Duck Creek formation, northwestern Western Australia, contain abundant organically preserved microorganisms which are morphologically similar to fossils of approximately the same age from the Gunflint formation, Ontario.
(4) Entities include: a relatively small (5-15mum) coccoid taxon morphologically comparable to Huroniospora Barghoorn, a larger coccoid form comparable to an apparently planktonic alga from the Gunflint, Gunflintia Baghoorn, and Eoastrion Barghoorn (Metallogenium Perfil'ev).