Silex

//ˈsaɪˌlɛks// noun

noun ·Rare ·Advanced level

Definitions

Noun
  1. 1
    Flint. archaic, countable, uncountable
  2. 2
    A vacuum coffee maker. dated

    "The Navy uses several types of coffee makers – urns, silexes, and percolators. Each type requires special care in making good coffee."

  3. 3
    a vacuum coffee maker wordnet
  4. 4
    A finely ground relatively pure form of silicas used as a paint filler etc. countable, uncountable

    "Every little cold gust that I observed in the Colorado country had this corkscrew character […] an auger, of diameter varying from an inch to a thousand feet, capable of altering its direction so as to bore curved holes, revolving with incalculable rapidity, and armed with a cutting edge of silex."

  5. 5
    a pure form of finely ground silica wordnet

Example

More examples

"Every little cold gust that I observed in the Colorado country had this corkscrew character […] an auger, of diameter varying from an inch to a thousand feet, capable of altering its direction so as to bore curved holes, revolving with incalculable rapidity, and armed with a cutting edge of silex."

Etymology

Etymology 1

From Latin silex.

Etymology 2

Brand name.

Data sourced from Wiktionary, WordNet, CMU, and other open linguistic databases. Updated March 2026.