In reading about a flintlock rifle, I encountered the word "frizzen". I think it is the steel plate
from which the flint struck the spark to ignite the powder in the pan. I have not yet been
able find its etymology.

Flint Lock

The original flint locks were marked either:
"HARPERS/FERRY/(date)" or "SPRING/FIELD/(date)".
The lock was produced to accept a standard 1" flint.
The hammer, top jaw, and screw were made of steel, as was the frizzen.
The pan was of brass.
All internal parts - the mainspring, sear, sear spring, frizzen spring,
and tumbler, as well as the corresponding screws, were produced of
steel and in many respects resembled the French Charleville which,
after successfull use in the Revolution, became a model for future US. muskets.
The lockplate was unremarkable, measuring 6 5/8 inches long.

PS: I haven't been able to find "frizzen" in any dictionary, let alone find etymology. But look
at this, from Illinois Deer Hunting Regulations:
"Definition of an unloaded muzzleloading firearm: removal of percussion cap; or removal of prime
powder from frizzen pan with frizzen open and hammer all the way down; or removal of prime
powder from flash-pan and wheel unwound; or removal of prime powder with match not lit.

I finally found a site that shows a flintlock rifle being fired. Though not labelled,
there is a presumably steel plate above pan holding priming powder, at fortyfive
degrees to barrel of rifle, just ahead ot the hammer holding the flint, so that
sparks are deflected downward into powder in pan. Here's the URL:

http://www.uwyo.edu/ces/4H/Natural/Muzzleloading.htm

Again, I challenge the rest of you to discover etymology of "frizzen".

A book I am reading says "skinflint" for stingy person alluded to practise
of reshaping flint when it got worn, which might damage the knife used
to do so more than a new flint would cost - if you could buy a new one.

I just checked frizzen in OneLook.com. Not a single entry in all their 740+ dictionaries. Wonder why?

Baffled regards,
WonderingWind

No frizzen in the brick and mortar OED either.

???

frizzle - the steel upright part of the pan cover in a flintlock gun, against which the flint strikes to produce sparks [nouning the verb?] - Webster's New 20th C. Dict.

1892 Northumbld. Gloss. 305 Frizzle, in flint and steel guns the piece of iron acted on by the flint to produce the explosion. cf. flint and fleerish, flint and furison, flint and steel - OED2

Ah, frizzle! That explains the confusion...

I need to modify something I wrote above. There were two entries for frizzen in OneLook.com's over 740 dictionaries, but one was a capitalized something-or-other (not applicable) and the other was a rhyme-zone entry (no definition)....just to keep the record straight.

Frizzen would rhyme with mizzen as in mizzenmast...just a thought.

And the eight reindeer would have really been cooly named if built around tsuwm's entry:

Flint and Frizzle
Flint and Fleerish (no problem having two reindeer named Flint)
Flint and Furison (even three reindeer named Flint)
Flint and Steel (even four; why not!?)

Then the rednose reindeer could have been Flintlock the rednose reindeer.... That sleigh just shooting across the sky! A blast from the past! The possibilities are endless...

Dear tsuwm: please try harder. Your citation from 1895 must be close to three hundred
years after the device came into use. For some reason French "frisson" popped into
my alleged mind. But a "frisson" is a cold shiver, not a hot spark.

>please try harder

dear bill, bushwa. the 1895 'citation' is from a Glossary, which is also referred to for the definition by OED. two dictionaries which don't blatantly reference each other (for once) both give frizzle rather than frizzen.

This one (http://www.nwta.com/couriers/5-96/parts.html) mentions 1892. That's about as early as you gone git, Dr. B. It goes along with the corruption of frizzel idea.

wwh,

When was your article written? Any chance it could just be a typo? Or maybe someone found the term frizzen used in a source written in another language and transferred it to English? It doesn't make sense that frizzen isn't listed at all on Onelook or in the OED--but still appears in that article. I suspect one of these three: 1. a misspelling 2. a borrowed term from a foreign language 3. jargon picked up from a non-standard source...

And, if none of those, it would be interesting to know what's going on here.

It's fun being puzzled,
WW

Dear tsuwm: Faldage's URL clarifies everything, except how "frizzen" got to be so widely
used. The idiots always have us surrounded and outnumbered. My compliments to Faldage.

Very clear. I especially like the expression this vital piece of machinery in this context.

I have a guess: that it came from people saying something like, "The flint strikes the frizzle 'n then the gun fires."

This gun actually WAS a vital piece of equipment in its time. Here's a quote from the site's home page. The Northwest Territory Alliance (NWTA) is an American Revolutionary War reeanctment organization located in the American Midwest. We have over five hundred members from states as far west as Iowa, east to Ohio, north to the Canadian border and south to Tennessee.

The NWTA is a non-profit educational organization that studies and recreates the culture, lifestyle, and arts of the time of the American Revolution, 1775-1783. We strive to duplicate the uniforms, weapons, battlefield tactics and camp life of the era as accurately as possible.

Re-enactments...hey, CK, you-all got any flintlocks over there?

There's several hundred in the Tower of London, Jackie, mostly in reasonably good state fo repair. Just in case, you know

The thing that irks me most is that I got the word "frizzen" from
"The History of English in it Own Words" by Craig M. Carver, p 187,
in a discussion of "skinflint". Too bad he didn't research the word
before he used it.
The correct terms seem to be part of the problem. The "cock"
holds the flint, and strikes the "hammer". This is hardly the ordinary
sense of "hammer" which is usually in motion striking something else.

A case of "hitting der hammer mit der nail".

One reader of AWAD sent some information that if you google "frizzen" and "flintlock," you'll get more information about frizzens that frizzles.

Here's one basic hit, for example, but you all can google to your heart's delight:

http://members.aye.net/~bspen/flintlockfaq.html

After a quick review of all the sites that mention frizzens, I'd say the jury is still out...

Blast regards,
WordWeapon Not!


Edit: Here's another frizzen mention from the "How Stuff Works" site, which is a pretty standard kind of site. No frizzle mentioned at all:

http://www.howstuffworks.com/flintlock2.htm